WALES’ RICHEST TOP £10BN
They’re worth billions but who are they?
The top 10 richest people in Wales have been named – and their combined wealth has grown by more than £1.2bn in just one year to top £10bn.
Half of them are billionaires, and a sixth would be if he hadn’t given away £226m to charity.
With an average fortune of £1bn, all from business earnings and investments, together they tell a story of successful enterprise. 1. Sir Michael Moritz The billionaire investor has been confirmed as Wales’ richest man for another year after seeing his fortune shoot up by £679m over the past 12 months, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List – equivalent to earning more than £1.85m every day.
The Cardiff-born venture capitalist made his fortune from investments in technology and social media companies. He was an early backer of Google, seeing his firm Sequoia Capital’s £8m investment grow to a peak of £6.3bn. He has also invested in Apple, PayPal, Yahoo and WhatsApp.
He and his wife, US author Harriet Heyman, now enjoy shared wealth of £2.629bn. They live in San Francisco and recently gave $50m to Chicago University’s scholarship programme for low-income students, following a donation of £75m to Oxford University, where Moritz studied history. 2. Douglas and Mary Perkins Llanelli-born Perkins and his wife Mary co-founded Specsavers in 1984. They have sold over 19.5 million pairs of glasses and 400 million contact lenses in the past year alone.
The couple met on the first day of their optometry course at Cardiff University. They ran a successful opticians’ business before setting up Specsavers from their home in Guernsey, where they moved to be close to Mary’s mother. Their joint wealth now stands at £1.6bn after a relatively modest increase of £50m.
Despite their fortune the couple live in the same four-bedroom Guernsey house they bought more than 35 years ago. Mary often visits Specsavers stores, sometimes in disguise. 3. Simon Nixon The co-founder of comparison website Moneysupermarket.com, also maintains his position from last year, coming in third with £1.176bn.
Nixon, who is based in Jersey, sold his shares of the business last year, having netted more than £551m since its 2007 stock market debut. His personal value has risen £150m in the past 12 months.
His property assets have been valued at more than £330m. He has homes in Los Angeles, Mallorca and London, and is the proud owner of a Porsche 918 Spyder, one of only 918 built. He claims the car has already risen 35% in value within six months. 4. Sir Terry Matthews The technology entrepreneur and owner of the Celtic Manor Resort is at fourth place on £1.17bn.
Sir Terry, Wales’ first billionaire, bought the Hilton Hotel in Newport last year and is developing the Wales International Convention Centre at the Celtic Manor. He is chairman of the Swansea Bay City Region Board.
His wealth rose £158m last year. 5. David Sullivan Sullivan, who is pictured on our front page today, joined the billionaires’ club in last year’s list. Penarthborn Sullivan began his career in adult magazines and sex shops before launching the Sunday Sport in 1986.
Living in Essex since the age of 10, he has been a lifelong West Ham fan and became one of the club’s owners in 2010 after previously being a coowner of Birmingham City. He is now club’s largest single shareholder and his wealth has risen £100m. 6. Steve Morgan Founder of the housebuilder Redrow, Morgan is the only person on the list to see his fortune fall over the past year. He would have been a new entry to the billionaires’ list this year had it not been for a £226m charity donation. He is now worth £831m.
He was awarded a CBE last November for his charity work, with his personal foundation focused on aiding charities that support families and children in need.
Morgan has been instrumental in putting 46 Smiley Buses on the road and has further donated to charity through the sale of Wolverhampton Wanderers, in which he had previously invested £30m.
He ranks fourth in this year’s Giving List based on the proportion of his wealth given away, making the biggest single charity donation of the past year when he gifted more than 11% of his Redrow shares to his charitable foundation. 7. Henry and Diane Engelhardt Last May Henry Engelhardt said goodbye to the Admiral Group, the insurance giant he co-founded more than 25 years ago.
Before stepping down as chief executive, he and wife Diane gave each of the firm’s 8,000-plus workforce a parting gift of up to £1,000 cash – a total handout of £7m.
It’s all par for the course for the Engelhardts, who have parcelled a considerable portion of the wealth into charitable giving over the years.
It didn’t stop their joint wealth rising £20m to £720m over the year. 8. John Deer Deer co-founded precision engineering business Renishaw in 1973 after working for Rolls-Royce in Bristol. He was the firm’s managing director for 15 years and as deputy chairman is responsible for group manufacturing and quality, as well as chairing its overseas marketing subsidiaries.
His wealth last year rose a healthy £84m to £346m. 9= Michael Heseltine Swansea-born Heseltine is bestknown for his years as a top Conservative politician, culminating in a fiveyear stint as Deputy Prime Minister under John Major in the 1990s.
But he was also a successful businessman, owner of the Haymarket publishing group. His fortune is unchanged at £300m. 9= Lawrence Jones Denbigh-born Jones founded cloud technology business UKFast with his partner Gail in 1999. Their wealth has risen £25m to £300m. ROBERT Watts, compiler of The Sunday Times Rich List 2017, said: “The average wealth of our Welsh top 10 has now smashed through the £1bn barrier, a reflection of what a strong year many of the UK’s entrepreneurs and business leaders have had.
“Wales can take pride in producing entrepreneurs who succeed in many different walks of life, with a striking number of tech tycoons featuring in our Welsh list alongside those insurance, engineering, construction and older industries. That diversity of wealth creation gives reason for optimism about the future of the dragon economy.”
The 2017 Sunday Times Rich List is published on Sunday, May 7.