Two former Rangers directors have broken into a list of the ten wealthiest people in Scotland.
Sandy and James Easdale were named on The Sunday Times Rich List 2022, which was published online today.
The brothers from Greenock are the wealthiest newcomers, placing eighth in Scotland after amassing a fortune of £1.363 billion.
They were able to increase their vast wealth based on transport and portfolio of property acquisitions across Scotland.
The Easdales own McGill’s Buses, which is the largest privately owned bus company in the UK with a fleet or more than 440 vehicles.
Their involvement with Rangers began when in 2013, when the club as left on its knees financially in the wake of Craig Whyte’s takeover.
The pair’s time with the club was controversial as they were part of the deeply-unpopular regime of Mike Ashley’s Derek Llambias.
Both of the brothers resigned from the board in 2015.
The Sunday Times’ named Anders Holch Povlsen as the richest person in Scotland, with a personal fortune of £6.5 billion.
Holch Povlsen is the owner of Danish retailer Bestseller and has a 25 per cent stake in ASOS. The 49-year-old is also Scotland’s largest landowner, with more than 220,000 acres.
The top ten wealthiest people in Scotland have a combined fortune of £23.054billion - with more than a quarter of this in the hands of Holch Povlsen.
JK Rowling was named 12th on the list as the Harry Potter author and Edinburgh resident added £30million to her fortune, making her worth £850 million.
Robert Watts, the compiler of The Sunday Times Rich List, said: “Scotland's richest people have fared less well than those elsewhere in the UK, with half of this year's 10 Scottish billionaires seeing their fortunes fall over the past year. The combined wealth of the country’s 10 billionaires is still up, at nearly 2 per cent on 2021.
“As the economy continues to work through the damage wrought by the pandemic, surging inflation and the disruption to markets caused by the war in Ukraine are now making the business environment difficult.”
The study found that there is now a record 177 billionaires in the UK this year - which is a rise of six from 2021.
All of the UK billionaires combined are worth £655.122 billion - up by 9.4 per cent in the past year.
The 250 richest people in the UK are worth a combined £7110.723 billion.
You can read the full Sunday Times Rich List 2022 here or in the print edition, which will be released on Sunday, May 22.
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