2017 Sunday Times Rich List: The top 20 property players

Posted on
Mar 19, 2017

The 2017 edition is a beast. There’s a 1,000 UK-based HNWs in there and here’s a quick rundown of the top 20 in the property game…

  1. Sri and Gopi Hinduja (1) £16.2bn up £3.2bn; Hinduja Group now employs 70,000 people worldwide, across oil and gas, IT, energy, media, banking, property and healthcare. Currently developing the £350m Old War Office in Whitehall
  2. David and Simon Reuben (3) £14bn up £900m; Mumbai-born siblings made their fortune in Russian aluminium. Recently bought the Carrington Street car park in Mayfair for £70m, with plans for a £500m scheme
  3. Duke of Westminster & the Grosvenor Family (9) £9.52bn up £170m; own 300 acres of PCL and seated at 10,000 acre Eaton Hall in Cheshire
  4. Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay (15) £7.2bn up £200m; tycoons own the Telegraph and the Ritz
  5. Earl Cadogan & Family (17) £6.5bn up £800m; own 93 acres of Kensington & Chelsea
  6. John Grayken (21) £5.086bn up £671m; Lone Star/Quintain boss
  7. Baroness Howard de Walden & Family (30) £3.73bn up £100m; own a 92-acre estate in central London comprising 850 buildings
  8. Ian and Richard Livingstone (31) £3.7bn up £155m; hotel magnates also have 3.5m sq ft of developments in the pipeline in London
  9. Sir Henry Keswick & Family (36) £3.26bn up £285m; three members of the Keswick family sit on the board of Hong Kong-based conglomerate Jardine Matheson
  10. Eddie and Sol Zakay (37) £3.25bn up £100m; own some of the UK’s top hotels and lender Topland, which has now financed £750m worth of schemes
  11. Mar Pears & Family (38) £3.14bn up £140m; vast portfolio of 8,000 properties across the UK owned via Telereal Trillium
  12. Samuel Tak Lee & Family (43) £2.736bn up £606m; bought the 16-acre Langham Estate between Soho and Mayfair for £51m in 1993 (it was valued at £175m in 1989)
  13. Richard Desmond (46) £2.5bn up £250m; media mogul is now a serious player in the London property market
  14. John Whittaker & Family (53) £2.2bn down £140m; Midlands-based mogul with assets including Salford’s MediaCity
  15. Barnaby Swire & Family (55) £2.15bn no change; behind Far East-based Swire Group
  16. Viscount Portman & Family (59) £2.003bn up £113m; own 110 acres between Oxford Street and Edgware Road
  17. Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Al Thani (60) £2bn up £400m; One Hyde Park’s main backer 
  18. Bernard Lewis Family (60) £2bn up £500m; three brothers who built the Lewis Trust 
  19. The Lazari Family (70) £1.77bn up £57m; retail magnates
  20. Benzion Freshwater & Family (80) £1.594bn up £164m; own 80% of £1bn London property group Daejan Holdings 
  21. Notables
  • Jon Hunt (94) £1.36bn up £110m; sold Foxtons for £375m and now has a Ferris wheel of Ferraris under his Kensington Palace Gardens mansion
  • Lord Sugar (103) £1.25bn up £100m; Chigwell-based tycoon now has a burgeoning development pipeline in London
  • Steve Morgan (155) £831m down £49m; Redrow boss would have been in the billionaires list if he hadn’t donated £200m to his charitable foundation