THE RICH GET RICHER FASTER THAN EVER
John Harlow and David Smith
BRITAIN'S richest people have experienced the biggest-ever rise in their wealth, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
Driven by the "new economy" of internet and computer entrepreneurs, the wealth of those at the top of the financial tree has increased at an unprecedented rate.
The 12th annual Rich List, to be published next Sunday, will show that the collective worth of the country's richest 1,000 people reached nearly £146 billion by January, the cut-off point for the survey. This represented an increase of £31 billion, or 27%, in just 12 months.
Since the survey was compiled, Britain's richest have added billions more to their wealth, thanks to the continuing boom in technology shares on the stock market. This has pushed up the total value of the wealth of the richest 1,000 to a probable £160 billion according to Dr Philip Beresford, Britain's acknowledged expert on personal wealth who compiles the Sunday Times Rich List.
The millennium boom exceeds anything in Britain's economic history, including the railway boom of the 1840s and the South Sea bubble of 1720. "It has made Margaret Thatcher's boom seem as sluggish as Edward Heath's three-day week," said Beresford. "We are seeing billions added to national wealth every week."
William Rubinstein, professor of modern history at the University of Wales, confirmed that the growth in wealth was unprecedented. "Almost all of today's wealth has been created since the industrial revolution, but even by those heady standards the current boom is extraordinary," he said.
"There is no large-scale cultural opposition or guilt about making money. In many ways British business attitudes can now challenge the United States."
Although Britain's richest are experiencing the sharpest surge in wealth, the rest of the population has also benefited from the stock market boom and rising house prices. Last year wealth rose by 16% to a record £4,267 billion, according to calculations by the investment bank Salomon Smith Barney. In real terms, wealth has increased by more than a third since the late 1980s.
Much of the wealth of the richest is held in shares in start-up companies. Some of these paper fortunes, analysts agree, could easily be wiped out, although the wealth-generating effects of the internet revolution seem to be here to stay. Banks are lending people as young as 18 up to £10,000 to dabble in online dealing in internet shares.
The City is a particular beneficiary of the stock market's internet boom. Those earning more than £1m a year in salaries and bonuses has risen to 3,000 from 750 five years ago.
A Sunday Times Young Rich List, published today, confirms that people are becoming wealthier younger. It includes the 60 richest millionaires aged 30 or under. At the top, on £600m, is the "old money" Earl of Iveagh, 30, head of the Guinness brewing family. In second place is Charles Nasser, also 30, who launched the ClaraNET internet provider four years ago and is worth £300m. The remaining eight in the top 10 made their money from computing and the internet.
The richest woman is Avneet Sahni, 29, who runs the Manchester-based VIP Computer Centre with her husband Jatti and is worth £50m. Martha Lane Fox, 27, of lastminute.com, is 15th equal in the list.
David and Victoria Beckham, jointly worth £25m, are 18th equal alongside boxer Naseem Hamed. The youngest millionaire is the singer Charlotte Church, 14, who is worth £10m.