Sir Michael tops rich list
Sir Michael Moritz is the richest person in Wales, according to the new edition of The Sunday Times Rich List.
The 136-page special edition of The Sunday Times Magazine reveals the wealth of the 1,000 richest people in Britain in its 32nd annual edition.
Of the billionaires in this year’s Welsh Rich List, only Sir Michael Moritz has seen his wealth increase, by £47m, in the last 12 months. Moritz stepped down from running the Silicon Valleybased Sequoia Capital in 2012 due to illness.
His track record for consistently finding the next tech blockbuster at an early stage has earned billions for his investors and led to claims that he is the best venture capitalist in the US. Moritz is now worth around £3.047bn.
The Cardiff-born investor made an early investment of £8m in Google, which peaked at £6.3bn. He also funded WhatsApp, which was taken over by Facebook for £22bn.
In second place, Llanelli-born Douglas Perkins started Specsavers with his wife, Dame Mary, in their spare room and the Guernseybased couple still live in the house they had back in 1980.
Despite turnover up by 6% to £2.78bn last year, the couple’s wealth remains the same as last year, partly as the result of the recent high street shutdown.
Simon Nixon is the third richest in Wales, worth £1.35bn. He co-founded Ewloe-based Moneysupermarket, making £700m selling shares in the price comparison website. Jersey-based Nixon has £310m of property, including SimonEscapes holiday rentals from Barbados to Cornwall, and £500m of other investments.
Of the billionaires in Wales, David Sullivan has seen the biggest loss of £50m.
Cardiff-born Sullivan’s holding companies show £274.2m of net assets in 2017-18. He has a 51% stake in the English Premier League football club, West Ham United, which is worth £325m.
However, along with other West Ham shareholders, he has promised to inject £30m into the Premier League football club to keep it going during the coronavirus crisis, which has contributed to the fall in his wealth this year to £1.1bn.
A number of the Welsh Rich Listers have been prominent in the charitable efforts to mitigate the worst effects of the coronavirus.
Steve Morgan, whose £751m fortune (down £199m) stems from his Redrow construction business, pledged £1m a week for the 12 weeks following the start of lockdown to charities helping the most vulnerable sectors of society cope with the impacts of coronavirus.
Meanwhile David and Heather Stevens, co-founders of the Admiral insurance business, pledged their entire recent dividends from shares in the business – £4.9m – to coronavirus-related work, and £7.5m in all via their Waterloo Foundation. Admiral, where David is chief executive, also announced it would spend £110m in offering £25 rebates to its 4.4m customers to reflect lower car usage and the tough economic times.
There are a total of 29 Welsh Rich Listers with a combined worth of £15.326bn. The five billionaires in Wales are worth £8.537bn between them, accounting for 55.7% of the wealth in the Welsh Rich List.
Robert Watts, the compiler of The Sunday Times Rich List, said: “The majority of Wales’ super-rich have seen their fortunes either fall or flatline since last year. Their falling wealth mirrors the damage being done to our economy and casts doubt on just how quickly growth will return when lockdown ends.
“You may not like the super-rich, but it is hard to deny that our economy will need the jobs they create and the taxes they and their companies pay if we are to escape a prolonged recession that causes further misery to millions.
“There are still grounds for optimism in the pages of today’s Sunday Times Rich List, with countless examples of entrepreneurs who came from modest backgrounds to build successful businesses – often amid the economic downturns of the past.
“Those stories have the power to energise the next generation of entrepreneurs.”
The Sunday Times Rich List was published yesterday. The 136-page special edition of The Sunday Times Magazine reveals the wealth of the 1,000 richest people in Britain in its 32nd annual edition.