Rishi Sunak, the new UK Prime Minister, is the country’s first leader of color and also the youngest in recent centuries at the age of just 42.
He is also the richest-ever occupant of Downing Street with a fortune estimated to exceed that of the U.K.’s former richest prime minister, Edward Stanley, who was elected in 1852 and had a net worth of around $440 million in today’s money, according to Guinness World Records.
The newly installed UK PM is also wealthier than King Charles III – another record broken. That estimate excludes the value of the wider crown estate, a diverse portfolio of buildings, artworks, forests, and fields worth billions of pounds which is not owned personally by the king but rather held by the monarch only for the duration of their reign.
Sunak’s installment marks the first time a UK prime minister is thought to have been wealthier than the residents of Buckingham Palace.
On Monday, Sunak succeeded Liz Truss as leader of the U.K.’s ruling Conservative Party.
The new Prime Minister previously worked as a Goldman Sachs analyst and then as a hedge fund manager, before becoming a politician eight years ago.
However, his vast fortune is linked to his wife, Akshata Murty, a tech heiress whose father, N. R. Narayana Murthy founded the Indian tech company Infosys.
According to the Sunday Times Rich List, the PM together with his wife has an estimated fortune of £730 million ($844 million) – twice as much as the wealth of King Charles III and his queen consort, which is estimated at roughly £370 million.
Murty’s wealth majorly comes from her 0.93% stake in Infosys, which currently has a market cap of around $75 billion. She also owns Catamaran Ventures U.K., the British arm of her father’s venture capital and private equity firm, which has stakes in a portfolio of companies including a luxury furniture brand co-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s eldest daughter.
The couple is also reported to own at least four properties worth an estimated £18.3 million, including an apartment in California.
Before entering Downing Street, their main residence was a five-bedroom house in Kensington, London, worth an estimated £6.6 million, while they spent weekends at a Grade II-listed retreat in Yorkshire, according to The Guardian.
Sunak, the former finance minister faced sharp criticism earlier this year over his wife’s “non-domiciled” status, which excluded her from paying tax on her earnings outside the U.K. The loophole, though legal, is estimated to save the family £20 million in U.K. taxes.
Murty later promised to give up that status and start paying taxes on her full income.
Source: CNBC
