New British PM Rishi Sunak is richer than King Charles III
Rishi Sunak, the United Kingdom’s new prime minister, is already among the U.K.’s richest even wealthier than the recently appointed King Charles III.
The 42-year-old former finance minister and investment banker Rishi Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, have a combined net worth of around £730 million ($826 million), according to the Sunday Times — making the couple the 222nd-wealthiest people in the U.K.
Their fortune is roughly double the estimated £300m-£350m wealth of King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort.
Sunak and Murty, who tied the knot in 2009, are the owners of four homes spread across the UK and California, worth an estimated $18.3 million. The largest property in their collection is Manor House, a 19th-century, heritage-listed two-story countryside mansion in the village of Kirby Sigston in north Yorkshire. They purchased in July 2015 for around $2.3 million.
In London, their main residence is at 16 Hesper Mews in upscale Kensington, a four-bedroom terraced house that they acquired for $7.1 million in 2010. The couple also reportedly owns a house in Santa Monica, California.
Who is Rishi Sunak?
Sunak, who is considered a centrist and pragmatic politician, studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University and then got an MBA at Stanford University.
He worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs as a hedge fund manager and lived in the United States, where he met his wife, Akshata Murty. They married in 2009 and have two daughters.
He first entered Parliament in 2015 and served as a junior minister in Theresa May’s government. He has gone from MP to prime minister in just seven years.
At the age of 42, Rishi Sunak is the youngest person to become country’s prime minister in more than 200 years of Britain. He is also Britain’s first prime minister of color and of South Asian descent.
Who is Sunak’s wife?
Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty is an heiress to a fortune worth billions. She is the daughter of Indian billionaire Narayana Murthy, one of the country’s best-known businessmen who has also been dubbed the Bill Gates of India. He is the co-founder and retired chairman of Indian tech giant Infosys, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at $4.5 billion.
Akshata Murty’s own 0.93% stake in the digital services consulting firm is worth $715 million, making up the vast majority of her and Sunak’s combined fortune. Ms Murty holds an Indian passport.
Murty came under the spotlight for her tax status when it emerged that she held non-domiciled status, meaning she did not have to pay any tax on her earnings from outside the UK. As an Indian citizen, Murty is a tax resident of her home country but her “non-domicile” status allowed her to avoid dividend and capital gains taxes in Britain. She later agreed to pay UK taxes on her worldwide income.