Rich List reveals UK home to more female billionaires than ever
More women than ever have joined the ranks of the mega rich this year, as The Sunday Times 2020 Rich List, due to be released tomorrow shows.
The UK is now home to 25 female billionaires, including Bet365 boss, Denise Coates, and media dynasty mogul Elisabeth Murdoch.
TetraPak heiress Kirsten Rausing tops the list, with a reported wealth of £12.1 billion ($14.65 billion).
Her aunt Marit has also become one of the UK’s richest women through inheritance, after the death of her husband Hans left her and her family with a net worth of £9.6 billion. She is third on the list and the UK’s wealthiest new entrant.
Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, who has a controlling stake in the world’s second-largest brewer, is worth £10.3 billion. A haul big enough to crown her as the UK’s second richest woman.
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One of the UK’s newest billionaires is Elisabeth Murdoch, who increased her wealth by more than £1 billion to £1.2 billion. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s six children split the spoils of the sale of 21st Century Fox to Disney, with a windfall of $12 billion in cash and shares between them last year.
Elisabeth Murdoch is placed ninth wealthiest in the list of female entrepreneurs.
Songwriter and former Miss UK Kirsty Bertarelli boasts an £9.2 billion fortune, coming in fourth on the list, while Coates is fifth.
At the end of last year it was reported that Coates’ was awarded a pay day of £323 million in 2019. The sum is the highest amount paid to a chief executive of a British company and breaks the previous record of £265 million set by Coates a year earlier.
The wealth benchmarker has historically been a boys’ club, but this year’s list shows 150 women are among the richest in the country, with 96 of those qualifying as “self-made”. The remaining 54 gained their wealth through marriage or inheritance.
Each entrant has wealth of more than £120 million.
