Our Rich List
millionaires
have mostly
seen their
wealth soar in
the past year.
Picking up at No
135, our list of
Britain’s 1,000
wealthiest
people
continues
through to
page 139
135 £ 986 m £ 211m ▲
LEV LEVIEV
Diamonds and propertyLeviev, 60, known as “the King of Diamonds”, won a recent court
battle that obliged a former business partner to pay him $20 9 m.
A father of nine, the Uzbekistan-born trader moved from Israel
and lives in London. His Leviev Group controls companies
including diamond mines in Angola, Namibia and Russia, and
boutiques in New York, London and Dubai. 2016: £775m, 143136 £ 960 m £ 560 m ▲
ALEX BEARD
CommoditiesOne of the biggest fallers in last year’s Rich List was Beard, 49,
whose stake in Swiss giant Glencore dropped sharply with the
market glut in metals, oil and commodities. But the business has
recovered and its share price has more than doubled. Oxford-
educated Beard has a holding worth £930m and has received at
least £75m in dividends in recent years. 2016: £400m, 280=137 £ 946 m £ 354 m▼
SIR CHARLES DUNSTONE
Mobile phonesDunstone frequently hosts lavish parties at his Holland Park
pad in west London, so perhaps it is no surprise that his
entrepreneurial appetite has turned to food. The telecoms
tycoon owns 59 Five Guys hamburger restaurants and is rolling
out a pizza chain called MOD — Made on Demand — that allows
diners to design their own pizzas. Born in Essex , he is best known
for starting Carphone Warehouse with David Ross (qv). The pair
set up the business from a Marylebone flat in 1989 with £6,000
of savings and were instrumental in making mobile phones
ubiquitous in mod ern British life. Dunstone’s stake in the high
street electricals retailer Dixons Carphone , created by a merger
with Dixons Retail, is worth £42 7m, down £136 m on last year. His
stake in TalkTalk, the mobile network that floated in 2010, has
struggled since a high-profile cyber-attack two years ago and is
worth £455 m — a £24 8m drop on last year — although it yielded
a £4 2m dividend for him in 2016. A keen sailor who is backing the
Land Rover BAR team led by Sir Ben Ainslie in the America’s Cup,
Dunstone, 52, has diversified into property ventures, including
the online estate agent HouseSimple. 2016: £1.3bn, 82=138 £ 930 m £ 70 m▼
VISCOUNT ROTHERMERE AND FAMILY
MediaThe Daily Mail ’s pro-Brexit stance saw it branding Court of
Appeal judges “e nemies of the p eople” for telling the government
it needed parliamentary approval to trigger a rticle 50. Despite
the Mail backing the winning side in last year’s referendum,
shares in the tabloid’s parent have not flourished. The £2.4bn
Daily Mail and General Trust group is run by Rothermere, 49,
whose family stake is valued at £630m. We also add dividends
and properties in London and the southwest. 2016: £1bn, 117=139 £ 929 m £ 287 m ▲
CHARLES CAYZER AND FAMILY
FinanceEstablished in the 1870s as the shipping business that built
famous lines such as Union-Castle and Clan Line, Caledonia
Investments is now a £1.55bn City operation whose main
shareholder, the Cayzer family, has a stake that rose £67m last
year to £541 m. Company director Cayzer, 60, is chairman of the
private members’ Sloane Club in Chelsea. 2016: £642m, 190140= £ 920 m £ 70 m ▲
JIM MELLON
Property and fi nanceEdinburgh-born Mellon, 60, supported the Vote Leave campaign
last summer. He made his fortune from a range of investments,
including a £55m return on a stake in Charlemagne Capital inTHE
MILLIONAIRES
- A year later he earned £25m from a £10,000 investment
in a uranium mine. He is a big investor in German property and
is also one of the largest property owners on the Isle of Man,
where he is based. Mellon has increased his holding in Condor
Gold, a UK-based exploration company. 2016: £850m, 135=
140= £ 920 m £ 80 m▼
SIR BRIAN SOUTER AND ANN GLOAG
TransportSouter, 63 last Friday , is backing a private equity takeover of a
construction recruiter in the UK, while his Souter Investments
has put substantial sums into an Edinburgh residential property
company. He started the Perth-based Stagecoach bus and train
operator with his sister Ann Gloag, 74, in the early 1980s. Souter
is the chairman , while Gloag remains a shareholder. The family
stake has fallen sharply to £312m, although special dividends
have garnered the pair more than £320m since 2004. They hold
much of their transport interests in HGT Investments, which
showed £149m of net assets in 2015-16. After hefty charity
donations, we clip the siblings by £80m. 2016: £1bn, 117=142 £ 909 m £ 154 m ▲
PETER SMEDVIG AND FAMILY
Shipping, oil and gas servicesSmedvig, 70, comes from a long line of Norwegian seafarers. In
1995, after 80 years in shipping, the family’s investment portfolio
was worth £150m. Smedvig moved into drilling rigs but sold the
business for £1.2bn in 2005 and is a private equity investor
through his London-based Smedvig Capital. In its 2016
Norwegian rich list, Kapital magazine raised the low-key graduate
of Newcastle University to £909m. 2016: £755m, 149143 £ 904 m £ 177 m ▲
MO IBRAHIM
Mobile phonesSudanese-born Ibrahim, 71 , netted £200m in 2000 from the sale
of Mobile Systems International after leading a group of BT
managers who invested £100,000 in the consulting operation. A
separate African mobile phones venture was earlier demerged.
London-based Ibrahim stayed with what became Celtel, which
was divested for $3.4bn in 2005, making his family £480m from
the sale. He has put £100m into a private equity fund to
promote business in Africa. 2016: £727m, 157144= £ 900 m £ 180 m▼
MARK DIXON
Serviced offi cesDixon owns Regus , the world’s largest provider of flexible
workspaces and serviced offices , operating from 3,000 locations
in 900 cities. He set up his Dial-a-Snack sandwich business in
1976 but it failed to make his fortune, so after taking time out to
travel around the world he returned to his native Essex and
invested £600 in a burger van. Unable to source sufficient bread
rolls for his expanding operation, he founded his own bakery to
supply fast-food vendors, selling it in 1988 for £800,000. After
relocating to Brussels, Dixon noticed how business people
regularly held meetings in cafes, so in 1989 he launched Regus ,
floating the company in 2000. It is now valued at nearly £2.31bn,
although shares have slumped since the Brexit vote. Dixon, 57,
sold a stake worth nearly £102m last September, having
previously offloaded £100m in shares. He retains a 27.68%
holding valued at £639 m and has received at least £75m of
dividends since 2008. Other valuable assets include the Château
de Berne vineyard in Provence. 2016: £1.08bn, 106=144= £ 900 m £ 178 m ▲
DENNIS AND MIREILLE GILLINGS
PharmaceuticalsGillings, the son of an East End fishmonger, built a leading
American pharmaceutical business. The London-born academic,
who gained his PhD at Exeter University, launched his North
Carolina company Quintiles and floated it in 1994, taking it
private nine years later in a £1.1bn deal. The operation merged