They say wealth is influence, and the ability to really experience life, how true; when it comes to greater wealth, look to the entrepreneurs.
Some of UK’s biggest earners are heads of companies and innovators who took a chance in the market.
While some on this list inherited a part of their wealth, many forged their own paths. Click through the slides to see the richest entrepreneurs and investors in the United Kingdom.
Simon Cowell
Venture: The X Factor
Net worth: 325 million GBP
Country: England
Pretty much everyone knows who Simon Cowell is, and no list of the richest people in the UK would be complete without him. Simon was born in London in 1959. He attended Windsor Tech for an education, and briefly worked on the movie set of the Shining. He was an A&R Consultant with BMG, a record label.
His biggest success started in 2001 when he was appointed as a judge on Pop Idol. He left the American Idol version of the show and started the X Factor. He started the X Factor through Syco TV, which was his production company.
J.K. Rowling
Venture: Author (Harry Potter)
Net worth: 1B GBP
Country: England
J.K. Rowling is the famous author of the Harry Potter series, a collection of books and films based around Rowling’s brainchild, Harry Potter. She began writing the first HP novel on a train in 1990. She released the first book in 1997.
The period from 1990 to 1997 was hard for her. Her mother passed away, she divorced her husband, and she was living in poverty with her first child. The first HP novel took off. She wrote six more, as well as a line of books geared towards adults. She was the first author to make 1 billion pounds.
Laurence Graff
Venture: Graff Diamonds
Net worth: 5.6B USD
Country: England
Laurence Graff founded Graff Diamonds. He is half Romanian and half Russian, but he was born in 1938 in Stepney. Graff dropped out of school at 15 and became a jeweller’s apprentice. He then sold designs independently across England.
He started two independent shops. He founded his own company in 1966, and gained recognition when one of his designers won the De Beers Diamond Award. The company grew and grew. Graff Diamonds does a lot of work not just in the UK, but in the Middle East, creating diamonds for wealthy Arab families.
Philip Green
Venture: Arcadia Group
Net worth: 4.9B USD
Country: England
Philip Green chairs the Arcadia Group. The Arcadia Group is a major retail conglomerate. Arcadia houses Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Topman, Wallis, and several other brands. Successful though Green has been in business, there are many controversies. The demise of the brand BHS is a major one.
BHS came under scrutiny after it was drowning in debt yet still paying out half a billion in dividends to Green’s family. Green was nearly stripped of his knighthood because of this. So far, he has not lost his knighthood, but that could change pending new information.
The Reuben Brothers
Venture: Trans-World Metals
Net worth: 14.4B USD
Country: England
David and Simon Reuben are ranked as the world’s sixtieth-wealthiest people. Though both were born in India, their nationality is English. Simon’s first business venture was in carpets. David worked in the scrap metal industry. Simon never finished formal education, choosing to work in business instead.
After the brothers invested in the metals market in Russia, their aluminium business took off. Their company controlled up to seven per cent of the global aluminium output. Now, the Reubens are expanding their business into Indonesia, South Africa, and Morocco.
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