Rich List 2017 Billionaires
63 £1.972bn £572m ▲
SUNIL VASWANI AND FAMILY
Transport and foodVaswani, 53, was born in India, raised in Nigeria and studied in
London. He chairs the Stallion Group, named after his favourite
animal, which is based in Dubai and has interests including car
dealerships and frozen food. Vaswani and his brothers Maresh
and Haresh, all UK citizens, run the operation. 2016: £1.4bn, 75=64 £1.95bn £640m▼
SIR STELIOS HAJI-IOANNOU AND FAMILY
AviationFew people have lost more from Brexit than Haji-Ioannou, 50. The
morning after the referendum, easyJet’s shares nosedived and
have yet to recover. The Athens-born entrepreneur and his family
have a 34% stake in the budget airline worth £1.29bn, a drop of
£770m since last year. Greek Cypriot Haji-Ioannou stepped
down as chairman in 2002 and has since diversified with his67= £1.9bn £150m ▲
CHRIS AND SARAH DAWSON
Discount storeseasyGroup businesses, including easyHotel, which after its
flotation is valued at £88.9m, putting the family stake at £49.5m.
However, the rallying share price of this operation cannot offset
the losses to Monaco resident Haji-Ioannou from the airline’s
plummeting stock market value. 2016: £2.59bn, 4165= £1.92bn No change ■
SIMON, BOBBY AND ROBIN ARORA
Discount storesB&M, the discount store chain built up by Manchester’s Arora
brothers, has had a rollercoaster ride on the stock market over
the past year, particularly since the referendum vote. Former
Manchester Grammar School pupil Simon, 47, manages the
business with Bobby, 45, and Robin, 32. They sold a 60% stake
in the Liverpool-based operation to a US private equity group in
2012, which valued it at £965m. Since then the siblings have sold
about £680m of shares in the company. 2016: £1.92bn, 5565= £1.92bn £1.38bn ▲
STEFAN STEN OLSSON
ShippingOlsson, 68, may well be the world’s richest man of the cloth. A
Catholic priest, the London-based Swede has a 24.5% stake in
the Stena Sphere shipping operation. It showed record profits of
£511m in 2016 — a rise of nearly 50% on the year before — while
the sale of pharmaceuticals enterprise Meda produced a
£1.1bn windfall for the company. 2016: £540m, 215=67= £1.9bn £450m ▲
ALKI DAVID AND THE LEVENTIS FAMILY
Drinks and mediaDavid, 49 later this month, runs FilmOn, which claims to be the
largest free provider of internet television and is worth more than
£500m. Based in London, he heads the Greek Leventis family,
which has a £1.66bn stake in Coca-Cola Hellenic. David recently
sold one of his 11 properties worldwide, a Beverly Hills mansion,
for nearly $25m and is married to Jennifer Stano, an American
swimwear designer and former model. 2016: £1.45bn, 7169 £1.85bn £450m ▲
FARHAD MOSHIRI
Investment and footballIranian-born Moshiri, 62 next Thursday, is pressing ahead with
plans to build a 52,500-seat stadium for Everton football club.
He bought a near-50% stake in the Premier League team last
year for £87.5m. He had also previously invested in Arsenal,
alongside his friend and business partner Alisher Usmanov (qv),
whose USM Holdings sponsors Everton’s training ground, Finch
Farm. Moshiri, a British citizen who lives mainly in Monaco, has a
10% stake in the USM operation. 2016: £1.4bn, 75=70 £1.777bn £57m ▲
THE LAZARI FAMILY
PropertyLazari Investments is a leading London property operation, with
tenants including the online fashion and beauty retailer Asos. It is
run by the three children of the late Greek Cypriot founder Chris
Lazari: Len, Nicholas and Andrie. Its net assets exceeded £1.7bn
in 2016-17 and the family has other interests. 2016: £1.72bn, 6171= £1.726bn £820m ▲
MIKE CANNON-BROOKES
SoftwareCannon-Brookes, 37, co-founded Australian software company
Atlassian in 2002 with business partner Scott Farquhar (qv),
having met at university. The pair, who are joint chief executives,
moved to a Mayfair base for their growing business, which
specialises in project-tracking and workflow-management
software. After a Nasdaq float the operation is valued at £4.76bn,
with US-born Cannon-Brookes retaining a stake worth £1.726bn.
His wife, Annie, is a fashion designer. 2016: £906m, 124=SIMON, BOBBY AND
ROBIN ARORA
Entry 65=, £1.92bnDawson, 65, loves monogramming. The
former market trader behind the Range
discount stores has his initials
embroidered into his tailor-made shirts,
his shops’ “R” logo etched onto his
helicopter and a registration plate on his
Rolls-Royce that reads DE11 BOY in
homage to Dawson’s alter ego in Only
Fools and Horses.
Life is lovely jubbly for the wheeler-
dealer, whose success has far eclipsed
that of his hero Derek Trotter. Dawson
started selling ice cream at the age of
seven and cups of tea at 14, progressing
to watches out of a briefcase, then to all
kinds of everything flogged from the
back of a lorry, with sales patter thrownin free. He opened his first superstore in
1989 in his home city, Plymouth. Proud of
the Range’s reputation as “the working
man’s John Lewis”, Dawson does a roaring
trade and each customer makes a
“ker-ching” sound in his head. He left
school with no qualifications and has
declared: “I’ve never written a letter in my
life or read a book. I don’t care about that.
Some people don’t get here by luck — they
get here because they’re the very best.
Now I’m doing deals for mega-millions.”
Last year he and wife, Sarah, 54, who
owns 40% of the business, were paid a
dividend of £100m, while in 2015-16 sales
approached £675m in the £1.65bn family-
owned operation. 2016: £1.75bn, 58=LEONIE MORSE / THE TIMES; REX
The Sunday Times Magazine • 39