Sir Anwar, Lord Zameer among 20 richest Asians in UK

LONDON: Billionaire Bestway Group family members Sir Anwar Pervez and Lord Zameer Choudrey are at number 7 and 14 on the list of The Sunday Times 20 Richest Asians in Britain this year.

Sir Anwar Pervez and family are at £3.102bn and his nephew Lord Zameer Choudrey and family is at £1.531bn on number 14 in the list.

The family is amongst the giants of cash and carry business across the United Kingdom.

Fourteen out of the 20 richest Asians have seen their wealth fall in the last year. Brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja are still at the top of the Asian Rich List, along with fellow siblings David and Simon Reuben, despite the fact that they have seen a decrease in wealth of £6bn.

Sir Pervaiz and Lord Zameer are the only two Pakistanis in the top 20, while the remaining 18 Asians are all of Indian origin led by Sri and Gopi Hinduja and family who are at £16bn - down £6bn from last year.

The remaining billionaires are David and Simon Reuben, property and internet, at £16bn - down £2.664bn; Anil Agarwal, mining, £8.5bn – down £2.07bn; Lakshmi Mittal and family, steel, £6.781bn – down £3.888bn; Sri Prakash Lohia, textiles and plastics, £3.605bn -down £1.797bn; Mohsin and Zuber Issa, fuel distribution, £3.56bn up £2.36bn; Samuel Tak Lee and family, property, £2.85bn – down £155m. Simon, Bobby and Robin Arora, discount stores, £2.111bn – down £149m; Lord Paul and family, industry £1.9bn - down £100m; Farhad Moshiri is £1.875bn – up £300m; Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is £1.808bn – up £119m; Navin and Varsha Engineer, £1.8bn – up £100m; Raj, Tony and Harpal Matharu and family are £1.3n - down £21m; Surinder Arora and family are £1.265bn – up £136m; Sunil Vaswani and family are £1.25bn -down £719m; Nadhmi Auchi is £1.182bn – up £6m; Mahmud Kamani and family are £1.031bn – down £132m; and Jasminder Singh and family are £1.015bn - down £85m.

No one has lost more money from the financial impacts of coronavirus than the Hinduja brothers, whose interests suffered on the Indian stock market during the coronavirus-induced crash before rallying during April. The Hinduja Group has operations in oil and gas, IT, energy, media, finance, property and healthcare. T

Robert Watts, the compiler of The Sunday Times Rich List, said“The early editions of The Sunday Times Rich List were dominated by white men sitting on wealth they had often inherited. But in recent years we have documented the explosion of wealth creation in Britain’s Asian communities.

“Many of the entrepreneurs on our Asian Rich List have some of the most inspiring stories of any of our 1,000 entries, often with humble roots and inauspicious starts to their careers. Sir Anwar Pervez once worked as a bus conductor and Surinder Arora initially served as a waiter in a hotel he now owns. Both are now billionaires. Britain will need the energy and job-creating skills of these people for our economy to recover from the damage wrought by Covid-19.

“Our Asian Rich List also includes wealthy families from the subcontinent, such as the Hindujas, Reubens and Mittals. These are people, who chose to base themselves in the UK for a wide range of reasons, including the regulatory environment. Covid-19 will not destroy that appeal. We still believe the UK will continue to prove to be a magnet for the super-rich.”