How rich is the new UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty?
The Sunaks (Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty) have a net worth of £730 million and are said to own almost double the wealth of UK's King Charles III. But their high net worth actually comes from a loaded Infosys stock market portfolio, international real estate investments and hedge fund investments.
So as you all know, Rishi Sunak is the UK's first Asian Prime Minister and also the first Prime Minister of Color (POC). He is also UK's youngest Prime Minister and follows Hinduism. But the one fact that is getting the most attention is that he's a money man. And for all you know, he seems to be wealthier than UK's monarch King Charles III.
How wealthy are the Sunaks?
In May 2022, Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murthy were the new entrants who ranked 222 on the Sunday Times Rich List- 2022'. (Sunday Times Rich List is a list of the 250 wealthiest people or families residing in the United Kingdom ranked by net wealth.) Their net worth was said to be 730 million pounds (which is about Rs 6,848.88 crore) and their source of wealth was said to be from ''technology and hedge funds''. Compare this with King Charles III, whose pre-inheritance net worth was around $440 million.
The shares: If you just consider the publicly available information, most of their wealth comes from Akshata Murthy's stake in Infosys, which has a market cap of around $75 billion (ie about Rs 62,10,26 crore). Of the total shareholding of Infosys, the promoter holding has been consistent since the last 9 quarters and stands at about 13.12%. As of December 2019, Akshata Murthy held about 3.89 crore shares of Infosys which is about 0.91% of the total number of Infosys shares. (As per Quartz, it seems that her stake has gone up to 0.93%). Today the share price of each Infosys share is Rs 1,526 which makes the total value of shares held by Akshata to be worth Rs 5,944 crore.
Earning from his ministerial position: As per Mint, Rishi Sunak's salary as a Chancellor was £151,649. This means that as a Prime Minister, the same would increase.
Properties: Murty and Sunak are said to have a great international real-estate portfolios that is estimated to be around $18.3 million (about Rs 151 crore). The Sunak and Murty own four homes, ie two in London, one in Yorkshire, and one in LA. This includes a £7 million (about Rs 65 crore) five-bedroom house in Kensington, London and a penthouse in California overlooking the beach. In Yorkshire, the couple owns a Grade-II listed Georgian mansion, set across 12 acres and includes an ornamental lake.
Other businesses: As per Rishi Sunak's declarations as of May 2022 which is mentioned in the ''List of Ministers’ Interests'', Rishi receives income from a blind trust and is a patron and an honorary member of about 6 institutions. Akshata Murty owns Catamaran Ventures UK, the British arm of Narayana Murthy’s venture capital and private equity firm. The company manages over $1 billion in investments across assets in India.
Lavish expenses: In August 2022, Sunak was in the news for spending £400,000 (about Rs 3.75 crore) on a swimming pool at his sprawling £1.5 million (Rs 14 crore) mansion.
How did people come to know that the Sunaks are rich? In April 2022, Rishi Sunak was accused of not following the law and was accused of not disclosing his personal interest (shareholdings) in his ministerial declarations. He was also accused of not declaring his wife Akshata Murthy's large stake in India's IT giant company Infosys. This led to a lot of public attention being diverted to his personal wealth and more scrutiny of his wife Akshata Murthy's tax matters.
The British press targetted the Sunaks when it came to light that Akshata Murthy had received Rs 113 crore as dividends from Infosys and she had not paid taxes on this income in UK because she was legally not required to (since she was paying taxes in India). But the increased scrutiny made Akshata Murthy announce that she now would willingly pay dugna lagaan ie, tax in the UK on this same income, even though she didn't need to.
Sunaks' net worth makes him richer than the recently appointed King Charles III, which is mostly tied to real estate holdings and other assets such as jewelry and art.