Industrialist fired from first job ‘for having eczema’ tops the rich list
BRITAIN’S new richest man is a selfmade billionaire who only started his business at 45.
Jim Ratcliffe, 65, the chairman of chemicals giant Ineos, revealed that he lasted less than a week in his first permanent job, for BP.
He told the Sunday Times: “I was called in by my boss, who said that he had been reading my medical report – they’d not bothered until then. I was fired for having mild eczema.
“I was told, ‘We can’t spend the money on training you for five years and then find you’ve got an allergy, so you’re on your bike.’”
In his later career at Ineos, Mr Ratcliffe’s business model involved buying unwanted chemical sites and operations – including from BP.
Inherited wealth and nobility are less visible on this year’s Sunday Times rich list than 30 years ago. Ratcliffe, who once lived in a council house near Manchester, topped the list with a fortune of £21.05 billion, rising from 18th place. Ineos’s director Andy Currie and finance director John Reece shared in the success of the company, taking joint 16th place with fortunes of £7 billion each.
In second place were the Hinduja brothers, Sri and Gopi, worth £20.64 billion. Sir Len Blavatnik, the British-american industrialist turned media mogul, came in third place with £15.26billion to his name.
There are now 141 women on the list, including Charlene de Carvalhoheineken of the brewing dynasty at number six.
Penny Streeter, another self-made millionaire, is worth £157million and made the list with her medical recruitment firm Ambition, now called A24 Group, which she launched in 1996 after once being penniless and moving into a homeless shelter.