CLEANING UP
Entry 7, £15bnSTEELY RESOLVE
Entry 6, £17bn3 DAVID AND SIMON REUBEN AND FAMILY
£22.265bn £800m ▲
Property and internetThe Reubens last year swooped to buy Newcastle United from Mike
Ashley (qv) with Saudi investors and the financier Amanda Staveley.
The brothers own 10 per cent of the Magpies and David’s son Jamie,
36 this month, is a director of the Premier League club. Mumbai-born
David, 83, and Simon, 81, came to Britain in the 1950s. Simon bought
a carpet firm before making savvy London property buys. David was
in scrap metal and the brothers went on to control 5 per cent of
global aluminium output via Trans-World Metals. Embroiled in Russia’s
“aluminium wars” of the 1990s they left the country in 2000 about
£1.3 billion richer, buying property in London, the US and Europe.
Their Aldersgate Investments made about $7.7 billion in three
tranches selling Global Switch, which has huge data centres in
Europe. Company assets add up to £22.265 billion including 16 British
racecourses, London Oxford Airport and the London heliport. The
brothers gave away £19.4 million in the past year, mostly to Oxford
University, where Reuben College has opened. 2021: £21.465bn, 24 SIR LEONARD BLAVATNIK
£20bn £3bn ▼
Investment, music and media^Vladimir who? Len Blavatnik, 64, says he has not met President Putin
for more than 20 years. Anyone who describes him as an “oligarch”
can expect a letter from his lawyers. Although he built his fortune in
Russian aluminium and oil in the 1980s, Blavatnik offloaded the last
of his assets in the country in 2013 and has long held joint US and
British citizenship. Born in Odesa when Ukraine was under Soviet
control, Blavatnik grew up north of Moscow and studied in America.
In 1986 he founded Access Industries, the majority owner of Warner
Music, in New York, allowing him to rub shoulders with Ed Sheeran
and Chris Martin (both qv). Warner Music’s share price has fallen
over the past year, lopping £3.5 billion off the value of Access’s
holding, now about £8.6 billion. Access has sold nearly £338 million
of Warner shares in that time. Blavatnik is joining London-based
François-Henri Pinault, who is married to the actress Selma Hayek
(both qv), to take on the audio streamer Spotify by acquiring Deezer,
the French music streamer already 30 per cent owned by Blavatnik.
A Paris listing could be lucrative. Warner Music’s lower share price
and refinancing DAZN, the UK-based “Netflix of sport”, has cost
Blavatnik ground. The London-based father of four has several
hundred million dollars in New York property plus hotels in the US,
the French Riviera and the Bahamas. Blavatnik has been generous to
the arts and Oxford University. He ranks 34th in this year’s Giving
List, having donated £174 million over the past year. 2021: £23bn, 15 GUILLAUME POUSAZ
£19.259bn £13.716bn ▲
Online payments: Checkout.comMillions of us use Swiss-born Pousaz’s £29.6 billion payments giant
without realising. The former beach bum set up Checkout.com,
which handles Netflix subscriptions and Deliveroo orders. Pousaz,
40, owns about 65 per cent, a stake worth about £19.259 billion.
He dropped out of university to surf in California and when he ran
out of cash, learnt the basics of payments at IPC. Lured to London
by favourable start-up rules, he launched Checkout.com in 2012.
Landing Netflix as a customer in 2018 was key: today clients include
Pizza Hut, Sony, Siemens and Revolut, founded by Nik Storonsky and
Vlad Yatsenko (both qv). Checkout.com has 1,700 staff in 19 countries
and Pousaz spends much of his time in Dubai with his wife and two
children. They still fly economy to “stay normal”. 2021: £5.543bn, 336 LAKSHMI MITTAL AND FAMILY
£17bn £2.32bn ▲
Steel: ArcelorMittalThe invasion of Ukraine forced Mittal, 71, to halt production at his
steel plant there for six weeks. ArcelorMittal, a large employer in
Kryvyi Rih, the home town of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky,
reopened in April. Mittal was born into an Indian steel family. In 2006
he merged Mittal Steel with the French firm Arcelor and today the
£24.9 billion Luxembourg-based producer is the world’s second
largest. Mittal retains 37 per cent, a slice worth £9.2 billion. His son,
Aditya, 46, became chief executive last year. Steel prices have
risen strongly of late and the family’s stake has put on £2 billion,
with dividends of £85.6 million. They also own 40 per cent of the
stainless steel outfit Aperam, a stake worth £1.257 billion, down
£123 million. The Mittals own 11 per cent of Queens Park Rangers,
the west London Championship football club, and have shares in
HCL-Mittal Energy, the Leicestershire builder Breedon and
London-listed Nostrum Oil & Gas. Mittal paid more than £300 million
for three houses in Kensington Palace Gardens in London and has a
Hampstead mansion too. In 2020 his brother Pramod was declared
bankrupt, owing £2.5 billion. 2021: £14.68bn, 57 CHRISTOPH HENKEL AND FAMILY
£15bn £13.6bn ▲
Chemicals: HenkelHenkel, whose family chemicals giant makes the laundry detergent
Persil, is the new landlord of the 13,000-acre Kilchoan Estate,
accessible only by ferry in the remote west Highlands. Henkel, 64,
wants to rewild the area and has created niche holiday haunts before,
turning the Colorado ghost town of Dunton Hot Springs into a luxury
resort with his wife, Katrin Bellinger, 63, an art dealer. The Düsseldorf
conglomerate Henkel is one of Germany’s biggest firms and has
a stock market value of £22.9 billion. About 80 members of the
family own 60 per cent of the business — a stake now worth about
£14.1 billion — which should have yielded more than £422 million of
dividends over the past year. The Henkels’ rise is explained by
counting the entire family’s wealth. 2021: £1.4bn, 120=8 GUY, GEORGE, ALANNAH AND GALEN WESTON AND FAMILY
£13.5bn £2.5bn ▲
RetailingThe Westons’ recent sale of Selfridges raised eyebrows at a time
when the pandemic has laid shops low. The family got £4 billion for
the London store, bought for £598 million in 2003, and £580 million
in dividends over ten years — but it soaked up heavy investment too.
Galen Weston died last year aged 80, leaving a fourth generation
steering the business, which began with a Toronto bakery in 1882
and now spans the Americas, Europe, Australia, China and southern
Africa, with brands including Twinings Tea and Silver Spoon. His
daughter, Alannah, 50, chaired Selfridges; Galen Jr, 49, takes care
of George Weston, the original Canadian business where the 63 per
cent family stake is now worth £8.659 billion, up £2.366 billion in a
year. Guy, 61, Galen’s nephew, leads Wittington Investments, which
part-owns Associated British Foods. His brother George, 58, runs
Primark. About 20.8 per cent of Wittington is family owned; the rest
is controlled by the Garfield Weston Foundation, which has gifted
more than £100 million to ease the impact of Covid-19. The family’s
Wittington stake is worth £2.433 billion — up £123 million in a year
— bringing dividends of £27 million in 2021. 2021: £11bn, 10ALPHA PRESS, GETTY IMAGES, STUART McCLYMONT FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
Rich List 2022 Billionaires
The Sunday Times Magazine • 19