Owner of London's first Raffles hotel tops Sunday Times Rich List

Gopi Hinduja and family, owners of the Old War Office building in Whitehall, have topped The Sunday Times' Rich List for the fifth year in a row, with an estimated fortune of £35b.

The family, whose interests span manufacturing, finance, energy and IT, bought the central London site for £350m in 2014. A £1b refurbishment will see it converted into a Raffles hotel, in a partnership between the hotel company and the Hinduja Group.

Jim Ratcliffe, who had previously backed Lime Wood and the Pig hotels, ranked second with an estimated fortune of £29.5b. He sold his stake in the hotel business in 2022 when private equity firm KSL Capital Partners acquired the parent company in partnership with its co-founder Robin Hutson.

Ratcliffe wasn’t the only entry in the top 10 to have exited the hospitality industry in recent years, with the Weston family, who ranked seventh, having sold the Grand Hotel in Brighton, to Fattal hotel group earlier this year.

Taking the fourth spot in the 2023 list were David and Simon Reuben, whose interests include London hotels Twenty Two in Mayfair and Mondrian in Shoreditch.

The brothers also own Admiralty Arch at the end of the Mall in central London, which is being converted into a 102 key luxury hotel.

Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken and Michel de Carvalho, behind the world’s second largest brewer Heineken, ranked eighth with an estimated fortune of £13.1b.

Outside of the top 10

11: The Duke of Westminster and the Grosvenor family (London landowner) - £9.9b

31: Ian and Richard Livingstone (Iconic Luxury Hotels and Atlas Hotels) - £5.9b

36: Earl Cadogan (London landowner) - £5.6b

37: Henry Keswick and family (Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group) - £5.5b

40: Mohsin and Zuber Issa (EG Group – owner of Leon) - £5.1b

44: Glenn Gordon and family (distiller and distributor) - £4.6b

52: Eddie and Sol Zakay (hotel investor Topland) - £3.5b

89: Jasminder Singh and family (Edwardian Hotels) - £1.9b

99: John Whittaker and family (Tower hotel management) - £1.8b

101: Stelios Haji-Ioannou and family (easyJet and easyHotel) - £1.7b

109: Peter Harris and family (Butlins) - £1.7b

135: Surinder Arora and family (Arora Group) - £1.3b

142: Raj, Tony and Harpal Matharu (Grange Hotels) - £1.2b

172: The Earl of Iveagh and the Guinness family - (brewing and property) - £983m

175: Richard Caring (The Ivy, Bill’s, Annabel's) - £950m

179: Christina Ong and family (COMO Group hotels) - £927m

193: Peter, James and Steve Rigby (Rigby Group hotels) - £866m

207: Charles Dunstone (Investments include Five Guys' UK rollout) - £840m

247: Ranjit and Baljinder Boparan (Boparan Holdings) - £684m

286: Tim and Kit Kemp (Firmdale Hotels) - £500m

306: Andrew Nisbet and family (catering equipment supplier) - £460m

328: Iris Gibbor and family (CP Holdings) - £400m

340: Nicolas Roach (Harbour Hotels) - £375m