There appear to be a fair number of rich South Africans living in the UK.
Yesterday, we told you about Lady Kitty Spencer’s boyfriend, fashion mogul Michael Lewis.
He might be worth quite a few million, but he didn’t make the UK’s Sunday Times ‘Rich List’.
According to the paper, political uncertainty around Brexit has caused many of Britain’s wealthiest people to move their assets elsewhere, “to make it easy to wire their money out of the country at a moment’s notice”, reports BusinessTech.
Many are nursing big losses to their bank balances. However, despite the pain felt by some, the list presents another record year for the super-wealthy, The Times said.
The combined wealth of the 1,000 entrants has risen to £771.13 billion – up £47.776 billion in 2018 (where the total was £724 billion). The billionaire count has also risen to a record 151 – up six from last year.
If you want to make the list you would need to have £120 million to get onto the bottom rung — up from £115 million in 2018.
The list covers individuals and families in the country, including many business people who have dual citizenship.
Nine South African-born individuals appear on the list:
Here’s a little more info on some of those big players:
Nicky Oppenheimer and Family
- £5,66 billion
- Oppenheimer, who has an estate near Maidenhead, sold his 40% stake in De Beers for $5,1 billion in 2012, reinvesting much of the cash in African food company investments and venture capital.
Manfred Gorvy and Family
- £953 million
- South African-born accountant Gorvy’s interests range from property and venture capital to African agriculture and Refresco, an independent soft drinks and fruit juice bottler.
Sir Donald Gordon and Family
- £600 million
- South African-born Gordon’s, (87) main UK operation split in 2010 into Intu Properties and Capital & Counties Properties.
Mark Shuttleworth
- £500 million
- Shuttleworth’s wealth is soaring due to the success of his business Canonical, which uses the Ubuntu open-source software it developed to allow televisions, cars and other devices to connect to the web. Netflix, Tesla and Deutsche Telekom are among 800 clients of the London-based operation, whose sales are thought to have soared by 61% to more than £68 million in 2016.
- Shuttleworth has dual South African and British nationality and a fortune valued at $1 billion by Bloomberg.
Tony Tabatznik and Family
- £500 million
- South African-born Tabatznik, 70, sold his Stevenage business Arrow Generics to US firm Watson Pharmaceuticals for $1,75 billion.
Vivian Imerman
- £390 million
- South African-born Imerman has been called the “the Man from Del Monte” after turning around the tinned fruit company and making £380 million from his share of the business, the Sunday Times said. He later took control of Whyte & Mackay, the Scottish whisky group, netting £396 million from its 2007 sale.
Imerman, 62, is currently in charge of London investment operation Vasari.
Richard Gnodde
- £140 million
- South African-born Gnodde, 58, took over as CEO of Goldman Sachs International in 2016.
You find out more about the richest South Africans living in Britain, and the rest of that Sunday Times list, here.
[source:businesstech]
