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Glasgow Live
Glasgow Live
National
Laura Ferguson

Sunday Times Rich List 2022: Former Rangers directors are wealthiest newcomers to Scottish list

The Sunday Times Rich List 2022 has been published, with Anders Holch Povlsen named the richest person in Scotland.

The 49-year-old billionaire has a fortune of £6.5 billion - up £500 million on last year. He is now Scotland’s largest landowner with more than 220,000 acres. Holch Povlsen is owner of the Danish fashion retailer Bestseller and holds a stake of around 25% in the British online fashion retailer Asos.

There are 10 billionaires at the head of the 2022 Scottish Rich List with combined wealth of £23.054 billion. More than a quarter of this is in the hands of Holch Povlsen.

Greenock brothers Sandy and James Easdale, former directors of Rangers football club, are the wealthiest newcomers to the Scottish Rich List, with a £1.363 billion fortune based upon transport and property acquisitions.

Now worth £996 million - down £4 million after a fall in the value of investments - Monaco-based Jim McColl, 70, head of Clyde Blowers, the East Kilbride engineering operation, has lost his Rich List billionaire status.

READ MORE: Glasgow council gets new SNP administration as Susan Aitken returned as leader

Ranked 12 in Scotland, worth £850 million, is Harry Potter author and Edinburgh resident Joanne Rowling, who has added £30 million to her personal fortune since 2021. Bristol-born Rowling, 56, continues to make large charitable donations, including £6.7 million last year from her Volant Trust.

The special edition of The Sunday Times Magazine reveals the wealth of the 250 richest people in Britain in its 34th annual edition.

There are a record 177 billionaires in the UK this year, up six from 2021. The combined wealth of the UK billionaires is £653.122 billion, up £55.853 billion (9.4 per cent) on the total wealth of the billionaires in last year’s Rich List.

Overall, the richest 250 in the UK this year are worth £710.723 billion, compared to £658.089 billion in 2021, an 8 per cent rise on last year.

The following people make up the top 10 rich list in Scotland:

Scotland

Rank

Name

Source of Wealth

2022 Wealth

Wealth increase/ decrease

1

Anders Holch Povlsen

Fashion: Bestseller and Asos

£6.5bn

Up £500m

2

Glenn Gordon and family

Spirits: William Grant & Sons

£3.395

Down £200m

3

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and John Shaw and family

Pharmaceuticals: Biocon

£2.496bn

Down £446m

4

Sir Ian Wood and family

Oil services and fishing

£1.819bn

No change

5

Mohamed Al Fayed and family

Retailing: Harrods

£1.699bn

Down £1m

6

Mahdi al-Tajir

Metals, oil, and water: Highland Spring

£1.685bn

Down £2m

7

The Thomson family

Media: D C Thomson

£1.585bn

Up £314m

8

Sandy and James Easdale

Transport and property

£1.363bn

New entry

9

Lady Philomena Clark and family

Car sales: Arnold Clark

£1.267bn

Up £126m

10

Trond Mohn and Marit Mohn Westlake and family

Industry

£1.245m

Down £14m

Robert Watts, the compiler of The Sunday Times Rich List, said: "Scotland's richest people have fared less well than those elsewhere in the UK, with half of this year's 10 Scottish billionaires seeing their fortunes fall over the past year. The combined wealth of the country’s 10 billionaires is still up, at nearly 2 per cent on 2021.

“As the economy continues to work through the damage wrought by the pandemic, surging inflation and the disruption to markets caused by the war in Ukraine are now making the business environment difficult."

To view the full breakdown of this year's Sunday Times Rich List, visit their website here.

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