Clearly, Brexit has not dampened the spirits of the UK's billionaire community.
The Sunday Times Rich List is out, and as usual there are no terrific surprises in it, despite the presence of 40 or so persons of Indian origin dotting the list of the UK’a wealthiest 1000. There are four persons of Indian origin in the top 50 alone.
The Brother Hinduja, Sri and Gopi, top the list with a net worth of 16.2 billion pounds, while Lakshmi Mittal and family are at the fourth spot with 13.2 billion pounds.
One notch higher than the latter, at the 3rd spot, are David and Simon Reuben with a net worth of 14 billion pounds.
The Reubens who, did you ask?
The brothers were born into a Baghdadi Jew family in Mumbai in the 1940s, and migrated to England when they were in the teens, in the 1950s, where they subsequently made their fortune in real estate and metals. While their business empire spans many nations, their only involvement in India came about last year when they signed a debt refinance deal with the Subrata Roy of Sahara for Rs 5500 crores over Grosvenor House hotel and two other properties, Park and Dream Downtown. This helped the Sahara group save the three hotels from being sold off by Bank of China, the original lenders.
At the 27th slot on the Sunday Times list is Sri Prakash Lohia of Indorama, with a net worth of 3.97 billon pounds, who is married Lakshmi Mittal’s younger sister Seema. The two men were born in Kolkata, and moved to Indonesia where they established themselves. While Mittal’s Arcelor is the world’s largest steel company in the world, Indorama is the world’s biggest polyester company.
Indorama stands for Indonesia and Rama, and its founder is a vegetarian and a God-fearing Hindu.
According to a report in ndtv.com, ‘The other Indian-origin billionaires on the list include Sri Prakash Lohia at 27 with 3.97 billion pounds; Anil Agarwal at 60 with two billion pounds; Sunil Vaswani and family's car dealerships business at 63 worth around 1.97 billion pounds; Manchester-based Simon, Bobby and Robin Arora at 65 with 1.92 billion pounds; Navin and Varsha Engineer's pharmaceuticals business at 107 and valued at 1.2 billion pounds; and hotelier Jasminder Singh and family is ranked 128 with 1.03 billion pounds.’
Then there are the new billionaires. At the 133rd slot are Mohsin and Zuber issa of Euro Garages, reportedly Europe’s largest private fuel retailers with a net worth of 1 billion pounds. Then there is Grange hotel chain’s Matharu brothers – Raj, Tony and Harpal – with 1 billion pounds.
Clearly, Brexit has not dampened the spirits of the UK’s billionaire community.
