Rich List 2017 Billionaires
54 £2.16bn £270m▼
MIKE ASHLEY
Sports equipment and fashionNewcastle United football club is celebrating its return to the
Premier League but it has been a tough 12 months for its owner
Ashley, 52, with the media exposing dubious working conditions
at his Sports Direct warehouses. His Nottinghamshire-based
sportswear operation is now worth £1.73bn against nearly £4.5bn
a year ago and his stake is valued at £980m, down £270m.
Ashley is attempting to become the “Selfridges of sports” by
selling off several brands in order to concentrate on top names
such as Nike and Adidas. 2016: £2.43bn, 45
Called to account, page 3655 £2.15bn No change ■
BARNABY SWIRE AND FAMILY
Industry, transport and propertyThe 201-year-old Swire Group was developed in Hong Kong by
Sir John Swire, who died last December aged 89, and his brother
Sir Adrian. Today it is still a Far East operation that spans aviation,
property, hotels, beverages and marine services. It is chaired by
Sir John’s son Barnaby, while Sir Adrian’s son Merlin is chief
executive. It holds a controlling stake in the Hong Kong-quoted59 £2.003bn £113m ▲
VISCOUNT PORTMAN AND FAMILY
Propertyconglomerate Swire Pacific, which has shares in the airline
Cathay Pacific, and operates businesses under the brand name
Taikoo, Chinese for Swire. Profits at John Swire & Sons in London
fell in 2015 to £579m on £6.9bn sales, but gains in the value of
family property should offset this. 2016: £2.15bn, 50=56 £2.136bn £386m ▲
PHILIPPE FORIEL-DESTEZET
RecruitmentAn entrepreneur from Lyons, Foriel-Destezet, 81, and his wife,
Aline, live in London. He started the Ecco employment agency
and turned it into France’s largest supplier of temporary staff
before it merged with Swiss group Adia in 1996 to create Adecco,
a recruitment giant. It is worth more than £10bn, with Foriel-
Destezet’s stake rising to £432m. Share sales have netted £1.4bn.
He has made sizeable charity donations and Aline is a benefactor
of the Institut Français in London. 2016: £1.75bn, 58=57= £2.05bn £1.4bn ▲
ANDY CURRIE
ChemicalsCurrie, 61, has been a director of the chemicals giant Ineos since
1999, a year after the company was founded by Jim Ratcliffe (qv).
Currie, who has a degree in natural sciences from Cambridge,
started his career at BP Chemicals before becoming a director at
Inspec Group, the former parent of Ineos. The operation made
£2.7bn profit in 2015, and Hampshire-based Currie has a 20%
stake in Ineos Capital valued at £2.05bn. 2016: £650m, 182=57= £2.05bn £1.4bn ▲
JOHN REECE
ChemicalsFormer PwC partner Reece joined industrial giant Ineos, founded
by Jim Ratcliffe (qv), as its finance director in 2000. Reece, 60,
who studied economics at Cambridge, has a 20% holding in its
parent company that is worth £2.05bn. 2016: £650m, 182=60= £2bn £1.32bn ▲
ANIL AGARWAL
MiningWhat a difference a year makes. Rising commodity prices have
been a boon for Agarwal, 64, the founder and chairman of
London-quoted Indian metals-to-oil group Vedanta Resources,
whose shares have increased nearly fourfold since early 2016.
The company is worth £2.8bn, with Indian-born Agarwal’s stake
soaring in value to £1.9bn. He established industrial sector
operation Starlite Industries before going on to set up his current
business, which floated in 2003. 2016: £680m, 17460= £2bn £400m ▲
SHEIKH HAMAD BIN JASSIM AL THANI
Investment and propertyAl Thani, 57, a strong Anglophile, urged Britain not to leave the
European Union last year. The Sandhurst-educated former
Qatari prime minister and foreign minister heads his country’s
Qatar Investment Authority, overseeing billions of dollars of the
emirate’s cash. He is the main backer for One Hyde Park, the
Candy brothers’ luxury development, and in 2014 the London-
based sheikh launched a £924m agreed takeover for Tony
Buckingham’s (qv) Heritage Oil operation. 2016: £1.6bn, 6460= £2bn £500m ▲
BERNARD LEWIS AND FAMILY
Fashion and propertyLewis’s retail career dates back to the 1930s, when his parents
left him in charge of the till at their London fruit shop when he was
just nine. Now 91, he launched his first clothes shop in 1948 and
built the Lewis Trust with his three brothers. Today it has interests
ranging from asset management to hotels and other properties,
though the family remains best known for creating the fashion
retailers Chelsea Girl and River Island. 2016: £1.5bn, 67=BERNARD LEWIS
AND FAMILY
Entry 60=, £2bnDeliciously Ella, the eponymous food
blogger, put her organic eggs in Viscount
Portman’s basket when she opened her
first cafe, the MaE Deli, in Marylebone’s
fashionable Seymour Place to become
one of his newest tenants. The road is a
slice of the Portman family’s 110 acres of
prime London property, a mix of
residential, retail and office space that
runs from Oxford Street to Edgware Road.
Ella, 25, above, who has more than a
million Instagram followers and
whose debut cookbook was the UK’s
fastest selling, represents a stamp of
approval for the Portman estate’s
development of its properties, many ofwhich were out on long leases that are
now coming to an end. The estate
comprises an orderly grid of 69 streets
with 650 buildings, four garden squares
and more than 1,000 homes, with 32
hotels, including the Radisson Blu
Portman and the Hyatt Regency
London — the Churchill.
Portman, 58, continues to expand his
agricultural interests with the 2,000-acre
Portman Burtley Estate in the heart of the
Buckinghamshire countryside and
1,000-acre Wilmaston Farm in
Herefordshire. The family’s property
assets have risen in value by nearly 6%
this year. 2016: £1.89bn, 56Food for thought: blogger
Deliciously Ella’s success
continued with the opening
of a cafe in Marylebone38 • thesundaytimes.co.uk/richlist