Dyson’s fortune of £23bn puts him second on Rich List
WEST entrepreneur Sir James Dyson has become the second-richest person in the UK, according to the new edition of The Sunday Times Rich List.
With a family fortune of £23 billion, up £6.7 billion on 2021, the 75-year-old inventor has become the second richest person in the UK, behind London-based brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja and family, now worth a record £28.472 billion, up £11.472 billion on last year.
Sir James, who has owned the stunning Dodington Park Estate in Gloucestershire since 2003, employs thousands of people in Malmesbury, Wiltshire.
The Dyson Group had a record year in 2021 with profits of £1.5 billion on sales of more than £6 billion – raising its value from £14.5 billion to £21 billion.
The company officially opened its new global headquarters in Singapore earlier this year. Dyson – known for its vacuum cleaners and fans – is based in the restored St James Power Station building on the island citystate.
Other people in the West’s top ten of richest people had contrasting fortunes.
Financial services boss Peter Hargreaves saw his wealth fall to £2.068 billion – down £342 million.
Mr Hargreaves co-founded Bristol-based Hargreaves Lansdown with Stephen Lansdown in 1981. It is one of the UK’s largest financial services businesses.
Mr Lansdown’s wealth also fell, dropping £128 million to £1.237 billionn.
Belfast-born Stephen Fitzpatrick, 44, becomes the South West’s ninth billionaire, worth £1.34 billion.
He boosted his personal wealth by £665 million after the New York float of his Bristol-based flying taxi venture Vertical Aerospace.
Mr Fitzpatrick’s wealth includes a £603 million stake in Ovo Energy, also based in Bristol.
The ‘Queen of Bond Street’ – Singaporean billionaire Christina Ong – saw her bank balance increase by £89 million last year to £1.089 billion. The 72-year-old majority-owns Mulberry, the Somerset-based luxury brand favoured by Meghan Markle.
There was little change for Ursula Bechtolsheimer-Kipp and family, who owe their wealth to inheritance and hotels.
She ranked ninth in the South West list for 2022 with overall wealth of £1.007 billion, up £7m.
She and her family have a horsebreeding operation in Gloucestershire, and their daughter Laura Tomlinson won the dressage gold in the 2012 London Olympics.
Dublin-born Sir David McMurtry, 82, has seen his wealth drop by £650 million in a year to £1.13 billion, after profits slumped at Renishaw, the Gloucestershire engineering business he co-founded.
Sir David is the executive chairman of Renishaw which makes key components for aircraft and cars, as well as hi-tech surgical equipment.
The Vestey family, whose main business is the meat trading company Western United Investment Company, saw their wealth fall £1 million to £716 million.
The dynasty founded and still runs the multinational corporation Western United Investment Company, which in turn owns Vestey Foods, Albion Fine Foods & FineFrance UK, Cottage Delight, Donald Russell and Western Pension Solutions.
Husband and wife Chris and Sarah Dawson, owner of the Plymouthbased discount store chain The Range, share a fortune of £2.25 billion, up £200 million on last year.
There are 177 billionaires in the UK recorded this year, up six from 2021, a year-on-year increase that is also a record. The combined wealth of the UK billionaires is £653.122 billion, up £55.853 billion, or 9.4 per cent, on the total wealth of the billionaires in last year’s Rich List.
The Sunday Times Rich List is published today and will be in the paper this Sunday.
It can be viewed at https://www. thetimes.co.uk/sunday-times-richlist.