The south west now has nine billionaires, according to the latest edition of the Sunday Times Rich List. Sir James Dyson, the vacuum designer, tops the list once again with a total wealth of £23 billion - a rise of £6.7bn in the last year alone.
That means Dyson, who owns a 300-acre estate in Chipping Sodbury, is now the second-richest person in the United Kingdom, and is far ahead of the next-richest people in the south west. Dyson Group had a record year in 2021, with sales of £6bn and profits of £1.5bn raising the company's value from £14.5bn to £21bn.
In second place in our corner of the country is John Christodoulou, a property developer who was born in Cyprus, grew up in London, and now lives in Monaco. His portfolio is worth £2.35bn, according to the Sunday Times, up £350 million on last year.
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And in third place are Chris and Sarah Dawson, the billionaire couple who own the Range retail chain. The pair, who live in Plymouth, saw their wealth grow by £200m in the last year to a new total of £2.25bn.
Bristol-based business partners Peter Hargreaves and Steve Lansdown, in fourth and sixth place respectively, saw their wealth decrease amid recent struggles and higher costs at their financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown. The founders no longer directly run the company, but they retain significant stakes.
Hargreaves' wealth now stands at £2.07bn, down £342m. Lansdown, who also owns Bristol City and Bristol Bears rugby, saw his fortune fall by £128m to £1.24bn.
The sole new billionaire in the south west was Stephen Fitzpatrick, who was born in Belfast but whose company, Vertical Aerospace, is based in Bristol. The firm's New York floatation helped raise his wealth by £665m to £1.34bn. He also owns a £603m stake in Ovo Energy, which is also based in Bristol and which planned to cut 1,700 jobs earlier this year.
The UK's rich list is topped by Sri and Gopi Hinduja, who together own Hinduja Group, a conglomerate that deals in oil, chemicals, banking, cyber security, healthcare, and property, among other interests. The pair's collective wealth grew £11.47bn to a record £28.47bn.
In all, there are now 177 billionaires in the UK - six more than last year, which is a record increase. Together, they are worth £654.12bn, up £55.85bn (9.4 per cent) in the last 12 months alone.
The eye-watering figures come as the cost of living continues to rise, with poorer people facing higher effective inflation rates than wealthier people, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation. More than two million UK adults have had to skip meals for a whole day as they cannot afford to eat, while taxes have been raised on workers in recent months; real wages, meanwhile, have fallen in the past year.
