WHILE the cost-of-living crisis has left many of us dreading the next bill and almost being reduced to tears at the supermarket checkout, there are a select few Islanders who, it seems, are still doing rather well for themselves…
The Sunday Times Rich List – the annual rundown of Britain’s billionaires and millionaires – is out this weekend.
And it reveals that not only are Jersey’s wealthiest residents still mindbogglingly rich… but they got even richer during the last year.
Jersey-based Glenn Gordon has two good reasons to raise a glass in celebration – firstly he’s the chairman of the Grant’s whisky business and secondly he and his family are the richest residents in the Channel Islands with an estimated wealth of £5.619 billion.
And he perhaps may want to make it a double, as the family’s fortune increased by just over £1 billion since the 2023 list.
Chris and Sarah Dawson, owners of homeware store The Range – a business which has previously tried and failed to obtain planning permission to open on the Motor Mall site on Grande Route de St Jean – finished a relatively distant second, with £2.5 billion.
The couple did, however, see their wealth increase by £475 million. And it was a particularly good year for Mrs Dawson, as her market-trader-turned-business-tycoon husband paid her a rather impressive £141 million dividend.
Simon Nixon, the founder of price-comparison website moneysupermarket.com who is believed to own a property in St Brelade, was the third-richest Channel Island resident, with an overall wealth of £1.88 billion – up £55m on the previous year.
Guernsey’s Douglas and Dame Mary Perkins, owners of Specsavers, were fourth with £1.5 billion (up £21m), while their fellow islander Steve Lansdown, who co-founded financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown, was fifth with £1.16 billion, down £11m.
For the first time in many years the Barclay family, who own a mock-Gothic castle on the small island of Breqhou, were absent from the Channel Island list, owing to uncertainties over the level of their wealth.
Overall, it was a particularly disappointing year for Britain’s wealthiest residents, with the Rich List recording the largest fall in the number of billionaires in the guide’s 36-year history, from a peak of 177 in 2022 to 165 this year.
Robert Watts, compiler of the Sunday Times Rich List, said: “This year’s Sunday Times Rich List suggests Britain’s billionaire boom has come to an end.
“Many of our home-grown entrepreneurs have seen their fortunes fall and some of the global super rich who came here are moving away.
“Thousands of British livelihoods rely on the super-rich to some extent. We’ll have to wait and see whether we have now reached peak billionaire, and what that means for our economy.
“These may be harder times to create wealth, but The Sunday Times Rich List continues to unearth entrepreneurs building fortunes in diverse and often surprising ways. This year’s new entries include people who have made money from artificial intelligence and virtual worlds as well as plumbing supplies and teaching aides.
“We know many of our readers find such people – especially those from humbler backgrounds – very inspiring.”
