ONLINE COVERAGE MUST LINK BACK TO: https://www.thetimes.com/sunday-times-rich-list
From titans of tech to megastars, Harry Styles, Rory McIlroy, Dua Lipa, Harry Kane and the Duke of Westminster all feature in this edition of The Sunday Times 40 under 40 Rich List, published today online at https://www.thetimes.com/sunday-times-rich-list and in the print edition of the newspaper on Sunday, May 18.
This year’s 40 Under 40 list showcases British talent from music, sport, entertainment and business.
AI developers, coders and data firms make up almost half the list. The list is a subset of the 76-page special edition of The Sunday Times Magazine, which reveals the wealth of the 350 richest individuals and families in Britain.
The combined wealth in the 37th annual edition is £772.8 billion — a sum larger than the annual GDP of Switzerland.
The list is topped by Dmitry Bukhman, 39, who along with his older brother, Igor, 43, taught himself to code as a child in Russia. The brothers, who received British citizenship this year, went on to create the mobile gaming giant Playrix, which now employs more than 3,000 people. Opposed to the war in Ukraine, the brothers, who have also taken Israeli citizenship, have homes in the same west London street.
Further analysis of the 40 Under 40 list reveals the following:
- The majority made millions on their own, but four were born into money.
- The £12.54 billion that Dmitry Bukhman, below, shares with his family amounts to more than a third of the list’s £36.2 billion combined wealth.
- Nine of the 40 have a nationality other than British. There are two Danes, two Poles, a New Zealander and a Bulgarian.
Many of the figures have been inspired to launch businesses as a result of their personal experiences. Ben Maruthappu, a doctor who struggled to find suitable care for his mother after she suffered a fall, founded Cera, a healthcare company whose use of technology is on target to save the NHS and local authorities about £2 million a day.
Stars of sport, stage and screen are scattered throughout the list, and fashion and sportswear makers continue to rise: see Ben Francis of Gymshark, Dan and Melanie Marsden, and Tom and Phil Beahon – the brothers behind Castore.
It has been a good year for the Manchester brothers George and Mike Heaton, founders of the streetwear label Represent, whose £180 hoodies and £110 T-shirts have been worn by Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber and Dua Lipa.
Robert Watts, compiler of The Sunday Times Rich List, said, “Our 40 under 40 list showcases many of the country’s brightest stars from the worlds of tech, fashion, music and sport.
Almost all of these people built their fortunes themselves and their number includes some who left school with few, if any, qualifications.
A third of our list didn’t attend university. At least 11 of our entries were born overseas, underlining the draw our country continues to hold for ambitious, talented young stars to build their reputations and businesses.
We know many of our readers find the stories inspiring of how the entrepreneurs featured built their ventures. It will be fascinating to watch which of this year’s line-up will prosper in the years ahead.”
The Relative Values interview with James Watt, the BrewDog founder and his entrepreneur wife, Georgia Toffolo, is candid and illuminating. “Georgia is the outcome of one of my worst-ever investments,” Watt reveals. “I have a portfolio of about 20 small businesses and one of them fell by the wayside, but the founder of that business knew Georgia and set us up. So I may have lost £150,000 but I gained a wife.”
