By AMIT ROY
THE combined wealth of the 101 richest Asians
in the UK in 2023 comes to over £120 billion.
The exact figure is £120,050,000,000, up from
£113,176,000,000 in 2022, an increase of £6.874
billion – a relatively modest increase of 6.1 per
cent but quite creditable considering the coun-
try has been through a pandemic, energy
shortages and the effects of the Ukraine war.
Eastern Eye’s Asian Rich List: Britain’s 101
Wealthiest Asians 2024 needs putting into
some sort of context. Anyone with £25m was
eligible to get on to the list 13 years ago. Last
year the entry point was £120m. This year that
figure has climbed to £125mn. Even allowing
for inflation, it is clear that British Asian busi-
nesses are a crucial part of the UK economy.
Most people on the Asian Rich List have set
up charitable foundations or contribute gener-
ously to a range of worthy causes from temples
to hospitals and schools.
Last year there were 16 billionaires on the
list. That figure remains the same, although
three entries are not that far away. Among
them are Dr Kartar and Tej Lalvani (17th with
£950m), who own the vitamins company, Vita-
biotics, and “spend heavily on advertising to
retain brand loyalty”. Ranjit and Baljinder
Boparan (19th with £920,000m), who have
struggled with rising costs in their poultry sup-
ply chain, are also just outside the billionaire
category.
It is disappointing that there only 8 women
on the list, 7 of them included as part of a hus-
band and wife team. Most business families re-
main very traditional and conservative but so-
cial change is underway. Young women are en-
tering family businesses and playing an in-
creasingly important role.
One of the biggest rises has been registered
by Sri Prakash Lohia, chairman of Indorama,
the chemical company. His net wealth has ris-
en to £10.1bn from £8.8bn last year, an increase
of £1.3bn – 14.7 per cent. As a manufacturer of
fertilisers, he has benefited from the rise in the
price of urea, an essential ingredient.
He comes in third behind his brother-in-law,
steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, and his nephew
Aditya Mittal – executive chairman and CEO of
ArcelorMittal respectively – who are in second
place with £12.9bn. That is a rise of £100m –
0.78 per cent – from £12.8bn last year. Mittal
senior’s younger sister, Seema, entered into an
arranged marriage with Lohia as they are both
from the Marwari community hailing from Ra-
jasthan.
The top place, as has been the case for sev-
eral years now, goes to the Hinduja family, now
headed by London-based Gopi Hinduja, 83, in
the absence of the eldest brother Srichand,
who died, aged 87, in May this year. The Hin-
dujas’ wealth comes in at
£33.5bn, an increase of
£3bn over £30.5 bn (9.8 per
cent) in 2022.
The 2022 total valuation
was a rise of nearly 15 per
cent over £98,597,000,000 in
2021. The 2021 figure was a
20 per cent increase from
the £82,098,000,000 valua-
tion in 2020. The figures
were £85,243,000,000 in 2019 and
£80,255,000,000 in 2018.
There is no dramatic change in the sectors
that survived the pandemic and continue to do
well – cash & carry, healthcare, pharma, care
homes and textiles.
One couple who have gone into the educa-
tion sector are Selva Pankaj and his wife
Tharshiny (a new entry at 79 with £180m),
who came to the UK to escape the civil
war in their native Sri Lanka. They
run the Regent Group, which offers
higher educational programmes in
a wide range of areas from real es-
tate management to investment.
They have also launched the Regent
Independent College, a private co-
educational school , plus the Regent
Nursery and Regent Learning Centre.
The hotel sector seems to be re-
bounding. The Hindujas, for
example, have invested
£.3bn in transforming the
historic but dull Old War
Office into the superluxury OWO Raffles hotel
in Whitehall. The hotel was opened by Princess
Anne. Jasminder Singh (ranked 10th with
£1.6bn) and Surinder Arora (15th with £1.2bn)
have also attracted favourable customer reac-
tions to The Londoner and the Fairmont Wind-
sor Park hotels respectively. Harpal and Raj
Matharu are ranked 21st with £750m, while the
third brother, Tony Matharu, gets in at No 23
with £745m. They would probably be in the bil-
lionaire category if they had
run their hotels as a united
family.
Another emerging trend
is in the finance sector. More
Asian entrepreneurs are en-
tering the banking arena.
The Hindujas have In-
dusInd, whose sponsorship
of the cricket world cup in
India has been viewed by
tens of millions of spectators. The Bestway
Group, led by the much respected Sir Anwar
Pervez (8th with £2.5bn) as chairman, Lord Za-
meer Choudrey (14th with £1.3bn) as CEO and
Younus Sheikh (34th with £540m) as director,
have the United Bank Ltd in Pakistan.
Rishi Khosla’s (22nd with £750m) Oaknorth
has proved to be a disrupter bank in a tradi-
tional space. Pradip and Manish Dhamecha
(18th with £925m) bought the UK subsidi-
ary of the Bank of Cyprus and rebranded
it as the Cynergy Bank. Balbinder Singh
Sohal (56th with £300m) is a new en-
try on the strength of his shareholding
in Cynergy Bank. Sanjeev Kanoria, a
surgeon, and his wife, Sangita (62nd
with £250m), who have care homes in
the UK, brought Austria’s Hypo Alpe
Adria a decade ago and re-
named it the Austrian
Anadi Bank.
The Ismaili
community is
represented by
Leading Britain’s revival
British Asian businesses are crucial to the UK economy
Eastern Eye Asian Rich List | 2024
Asian Rich List
The second
generation is
taking over
NEW ENTRANTS: Dr
Selva (right), and Mrs
Tharshiny Pankaj
BIG WINNER: Sri
Prakash Lohia’s
Indorama has seen
rapid rise in fortunes
MAKEOVER:
Princess Anne
inaugurates the
Hindujas’ OWO
Raffles Hotel in
Whitehall