Cameron Mackintosh is now one of Britain's new billionaires featured in the Sunday Times Super-Rich List.
Cameron Mackintosh is now one of Britain's new billionaires featured in the Sunday Times Super-Rich List. Reuters

West End theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh has been announced as one of Britain's new billionaires in the Sunday Times Super-Rich List, making him the first Briton from the world of show business to enter the elite club.

According to the list of 108 billionaires in Britain and Ireland published today in the Sunday Times Magazine, Mackintosh's personal wealth increased by £175 million in 2013 to reach £1 billion.

The 67-year-old theatre impresario owes his fortune to the spectacular success of musicals such as Les Misérables, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon, which returns to London's West End this month to mark the 25<sup>th anniversary of the show's premiere at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Miss Saigon is now the world's longest running musical and has been staged in 300 cities across the globe in 15 different languages.

The musical tells the epic story of Kim, a young bar girl orphaned by war, who falls in love with an American GI called Chris. However, their lives are torn apart by the fall of Saigon.

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Mackintosh lives in a 700-year-old priory in Somerset with his long-term partner Michael Le Poer Trench, an Australian-born theatre photographer. The couple also have a home in London, as well as a Scottish estate.

Through his company, Mackintosh owns seven London theatres - the Prince of Wales, Gielgud, Queen's, Wyndham's, Noël Coward, Novello and Prince Edward, all of which he is renovating at a cost of £40m.

Other entertainment names on the Sunday Times Super-Rich List include actress Salma Hayek, 47, who along with her husband businessman François Pinault, 51, has a combined wealth of nearly £2.4bn.

The fortune is based on Pinault's company Kering, which is the second-largest French luxury group and owns three major British brands: Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Christopher Kane.

Hayek and Pinault are moving from Paris to London because they say they want their daughter to be educated in Britain.

Richard Branson represents the world of business on the list and makes it in 24<sup>th place with £3.6bn, while Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone is in 30<sup>th place, after his wealth rose by £500m last year to reach £3bn.