Music mogul Len Blavatnik tops The Sunday Times Rich List – but who is he?
The Sunday Times has released its annual Rich List of the wealthiest 1,000 individuals and families in the UK.
Ukrainian-born Warner Music owner, Len Blavatnik's £13.17bn fortune means he now holds Rich List's top spot – a considerable jump from fourth position last year, pushing the Hinduja brothers, who are now worth £13bn, into second place.
Galen and George Weston and Family sit in third place with £11bn, up £3.7bn from last year, while Arsenal co-owner Alisher Usmanov was placed fourth with £9.8bn, beating the owner of rival club Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, who is in 10th place with £7.29bn. The Russian tycoon's value fell by £1.23bn from last year.
Blavatnik's portfolio of investments range from metals and oil to music publishing and digital media. His company Access Industries bought Warner Music for £3.3bn in cash in 2011.
| Sunday Times Rich List 2015 Top Ten | ||
|---|---|---|
| Len Blavatnik | Owner of Warner Music | £13.17bn |
| Sri and Gopi Hinduja | Founders of Hinduja Group | £13bn |
| Galen and George Weston | Owners of George Weston Limited | £11bn |
| Alisher Usmanov | Majority shareholder of Metalloinvest | £9.8bn |
| David and Simon Reuben | Real estate, venture capital, and private equity | £9.7bn |
| Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli | Co-chairs of Bertarelli Foundation | £9.45bn |
| Lakshmi Mittal | Chief executive of ArcelorMittal | £9.2bn |
| Kirsten and Jorn Rausing | Family founded Tetra Pak | £8.7bn |
| Gerald Grosvenor | Duke of Westminster. Owner of Grosvenor Group | £8.56bn |
| Roman Abramovich | Owner of Chelsea FC and Millhouse LLC | £7.29bn |
The 57-year-old's philanthropic efforts include a sizeable donation of £75m to Oxford University for the founding of the Blavatnik School of Government.
His other contributions include a £33m donation to Harvard Business School in 2013 to "launch a major initiative to expedite the development of basic science discoveries into new breakthrough therapies for patients and cures for disease". He also gave £6.5m to Yale to "explore" chronic diseases.
The Sunday Times Rich List describes Blavatnik as a "child of the Soviet Union, citizen of America, and now a billionaire thanks to the business free-for-all that accompanied the fall of the Soviet communism".
Blavatnik owns a £41m mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens, as well as a £50m property in New York. He is married to Emily Appelson and the couple have four children.
Forbes ranks Blavatnik as the world's 42<sup>nd richest person.
The fortune of Britain's wealthiest individuals and families has more than doubled in the past 10 years and are now worth a combined £547bn, compared to £249bn in 2005.
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