Top Investors in Property
The Sunday Times Rich List annually showcases the wealth of the rich and powerful in Britain. Whilst the millionaires included have made their money from enterprises as diverse as steel, motor racing, retail and pharmaceuticals, you may not be surprised to see that a good proportion have made their money through property investment.
Seventeen of the top fifty names on the Rich List have made money through investing in property. From the Duke of Westminster in third place down to Gerald Hines in fiftieth spot (with a wealth of just £800 million) investing in properties is a common theme throughout the list.
Gerald Grosvenor, sixth Duke of Westminster has a net wealth estimated at six and a half billion pounds from a vast property portfolio. The Duke is a leading property investor in both the UK and overseas owning over a hundred and fifty thousand acres of British countryside as well as properties in Mayfair, Belgravia, Paris and Washington DC.
The Reuben Brothers are also well known for investing in UK property. Having made their fortune trading properties in the 1970s and 1980s they now own a huge portfolio including the Millbank Centre and the John Lewis headquarters in Victoria. They are also about to undertake huge investment projects in Paddington and opposite Tate Britain in London.
Other successful investors in UK property on the Rich List include Sean Quinn, Ireland’s richest man whose company own major hotels in Ireland, Britain and Europe. Poju Zabludowicz is a Finnish entrepreneur with an estimated fortune of one and a half billion pounds who owns an estimated 40% of downtown Las Vegas and Earl Cadogan has a two billion pound portfolio based in Chelsea.
Another well known entrepreneur nestling just outside the top fifty on the Rich List is Apprentice star Sir Alan Sugar who has also made much of his fortune from investing in property. Whilst he may be better known for his technology businesses, Amsprop holds the majority of Sugar’s wealth and owns several office buildings in Mayfair as well as the IBM building on London’s South Bank.
There is no investment that is more common amongst the super rich than property. The majority of entrepreneurs started from humble beginnings and only through building up their property portfolio did they manage to buy bigger and more valuable properties. It is a pattern I also followed. Even those businesspeople who you associate with other areas of success are committed investors in property and so it goes to prove that it really is an area that can make you wealthy.
