Richest in the region see their wealth soar
Saturday 24th April 2010, 11:10AM BST.
The top 20 richest people in the West Midlands have seen their wealth soar by £280million in the past year.
The Sunday Times Rich List 2010 shows the region’s super rich have seen their fortunes grow by five per cent.
It is a staggering turnaround compared to 2009′s list which saw the region’s top 12 wealthiest lose a total of more than £2 billion. Top of the region’s list is mobile phone tycoon John Caudwell.
The 57-year-old who sold his Staffordshire-based mobile phone business Caudwell Group, which includes Phones 4 U in 2006 for £1.24bn, has assets of £1.4bn according to the Sunday Times list.
However, despite topping the West Midlands list he has fallen 10 places to 35th in the national rankings.
Second in the West Midlands list is JCB boss Sir Anthony Bamford whose £950m fortune has stayed the same as last year.
This is despite a nearly 80 per cent fall in JCB profits in 2008. The business, founded by Sir Anthony Bamford’s late father, is still worth about £800m.
Other well known figures on the top 20 list for the West Midlands include Wolves owner Steve Morgan who returned to housebuilder Redrow, which he founded in 1974 last year. According to the list his fortune is £350m.
Roy Richardson, who with late brother Don was behind the Merry Hill development at Brierley Hill is at number eight. The list says his wealth has jumped by £50million to £400m.
Other big winners include Stoke City chairman Peter Coates and his daughter Denise who have seen their online gaming business Bet365 grow.
Others who feature on the West Midlands rich list include Ranjit and Baljinder Singh whose business interests include West Bromwich-based chicken company 2 Sisters and fish and chip firm Harry Ramsden’s. They are worth £180 million.
Tony Murray, whose business interests include Wolverhampton-based plant hire company Andrew Sykes is on the list worth £481 million. Tony Gallagher whose company runs the Gallagher Retail Park in Wednesbury is worth £425 million.
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John Caudwell? Wasn’t that the guy who along with others like Phillip Green, get away without paying tax to the British Crown because they have their profits paid directly into offshore bank accounts.
Perhaps if they paid their share of tax we wouldn’t be paying 70 pence in the pound on our fuel costs, remember the saying “if you rid the country of all the benefit cheats the country will be one pound better off, if you rid the country of all the tax avoidence people, the country will be £10 better off” that’s the scale off the Tax Avoidence problem in the UK.
Jim of Bearwood
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Never heard that saying – but neither is right.
Benefit cheats hack everyone off and contribute nothing.
At least the majority of those avoiding tax (whilst morally still wrong) are instrumental in providing jobs for thousands of people.
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I have always been annnoyed by the tax system. Those in paid employment on the PAYE system have their money taken at source. They have no perks like claiming for travel costs against tax.
Self-employed people can do work and hide it, claim for business expenses like travel, use of home as office, and pass off personal expenditure as business expenditure. The favorite is to buy a computer and claim it is to do their accounts when in reality everything is done by their accountant. The computer is for their kid at school.
I remember one publican who used to charge motorists 50p to park. His son would sit at the entrance with a bucket which was half full at the end of the day. Did the taxman know about that? It is all on trust.
The Revenue used to say that there were two tax systems: Pay As You Earn for employees and Pay If You Like for the self-employed
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Whilst I have every admiration for successful and wealthy people, I do think that, in light of todays economic climate, all of this is rather like rubbing salt into wounds. After all, there are many hard working people out here who do not go on to become mega-rich, despite saving as hard as they can, being careful with their hard earned cash etc.
Good luck to the people who can afford to live priveledged lives. It must be fantastic, and many of them have worked hard, studied hard to get where they are. But Britain, more so today than ever, is becoming rapidly the ‘haves and the have nots’. And the ‘never will haves’.
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