Singled out: This year’s billionaire Brits
Forbes released its highly anticipated billionaire list yesterday morning which has left regular folks pinching purse strings in hopes to add another zero to their bank accounts.
The UK’s home-grown billionaires did not make it into the lucrative top 10, which was dominated by tech big dogs: Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Microsoft’s Bill Gates.
However, Vacuum tycoon James Dyson, Formula 1 magnate Bernie Ecclestone and the disgraced retail giant Philip Green were among the UK’s wealthiest.
Dyson
Britain’s highest-ranking billionaire, James Dyson, sat at 234th place with a net worth of $9.8bn.
The man behind the country’s clean carpets has steadily grown his wealth since 2016 from $4bn to $9.7bn.
In 2019, Dyson shelved plans to enter the electric vehicle market after they were not ‘commercially viable’.
Last year’s turbulence was kind the self-made billionaire, as his fortune grew $3.8bn, in its largest spurt since 2012.
Formula 1
At 891st place, Bernie Ecclestone made the list with a net worth of $3.4bn.
After building one of the UK’s largest used car dealerships after World War Two, Ecclestone built an entire ecosystem of racing.
In 2006, however, he was accused on bribing a German banker during the sale of Forumla 1 to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, and eventually paid $100m in a settlement.
Liberty Media bought Formula 1 for $4.4bn in 2017, when Ecclestone finally gave up the helm.
The self-made billionaire’s funds peaked in 2014 with $4.2bn and has since floated around the $2-3bn mark.
British retail
Now at 1299th place, after sinking steadily since 2016, sat Topshop’s retailer Philip Green who’s empire became one of the UK’s largest victims of the pandemic.
Green’s net worth peaked in 2016 with $5.9bn, but now stands at $2.4bn after his Arcadia retail group collapsed into administration last year, putting 13,000 high street jobs at risk.
The billionaire was also gifted a $30,000 loan from his family to build his empire at the age of 21.
Green was knighted for his retail empire in 2006, however, a decade later, parliament voted to strip him of his knighthood over a pension deficit scandal.
However, the vote was not passed and he has remained a knight.