Lakshmi Mittal tops Sunday Times Rich List 2005

Howard Lake | 2 April 2005 | News

Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal is the wealthiest man in Britain according to The Sunday Times Rich List 2005. He is now worth an esimated £14.8 billion, the highest individual personal wealth recorded in the Rich List’s 17-year history.

Mittal, chief executive of Mittal Steel Co, is one of 40 billionaires now living in Britain, the most ever recorded. Other names in this top 40 include inventor James Dyson, publisher Richard Desmond, and tycoon Nadhmi Auchi.

The Sunday Times Rich List features the 1,000 wealthiest people in Britain, 750 of whom are self-made millionaires.

The wealthy have enjoyed a rapid rise in the value of their wealth, according to The Sunday Times Rich List. In 1997 the top 1,000
were worth a combined £99 billion, but by 2004 they were worth £250 billion this year, a 152% increase. As a result, simply to be included in this year’s list you need a wealth of at least £50 million, a 25% increase on last year’s entry level.

Once again, The Sunday Times Rich List includes a ‘giving index’ which shows that the 30 most generous donors on the list gave more than £330 million in 2004. Top of this list in terms of proportion of fortune donated is Sir Elton John who gave an estimated 12% of his £185 million wealth to charity.

Of course, not all wealthy people are generous. According to The Sunday Times, “just 23 people on the Rich List who responded to a Sunday Times questionnaire gave more than 1% of their wealth to good causes.”

Michael Moritz is the wealthiest Welshman, worth £1.35 billion, and Tom Hunter is the richest Scotsman, worth £678 million. The latter gave £50.2 million to charity last year.

The richest woman is Christina Green.

The Sunday Times has in the past included extensive details about members of the Rich List online, but as yet there is no data for this year’s list.

The top 10 in this year’s list are:

1. Lakshmi Mittal
2. Roman Abramovich
3. Duke of Westminster
4. Hans Rausing
5. Philip & Christina Green
6. Oleg Deripaska
7. Richard Branson
8. Kirsten & Jorn Rausing
9. David & Simon Reuben
10. Spiro Latsis

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.