The 76-page special edition of The Sunday Times Magazine details the wealth of the 350 richest people in Britain, revealing the largest fall in the billionaire count in the guide’s 36-year history, from a peak of 177 in 2022 to 165 this year.
Those featured on the list must be worth at least £350m - based on identifiable wealth, including land, property, other assets such as art and racehorses, or significant shares in publicly quoted companies.
This year’s list has revealed that Liverpool legend Sir Paul McCartney has become the UK’s first billionaire musician, after gaining £50m since last year and hitting the £1bn milestone. The 81-year-old performed his Got Back tour in 2023 and saw Beyoncé cover ‘Blackbird’ on her recent album.
A number of other Merseyside people feature on the list - which is mainly dominated by business people - including the man behind Home Bargains. A successful Wirral sportswear duo also rank among the richest, and while they don’t feature in the top 350, they are on the North West’s 40 under 40 list.
Take a look below at the six richest people from or based in Merseyside and their worth...
1. Tom Morris and family
Net worth of £6.673bn. Morris started the Liverpool-based discount retail chain Home Bargains in 1976 when he was 21 years old. He reportedly founded the brand using a bank overdraft It now has more than 550 stores, employing thousands of staff. | Shawn - stock.adobe.com Photo: Shawn - stock.adobe.com
2. The Arora Family
Simon, pictured, Bobby and Robin Arora. Net worth of £2.682bn. Simon Arora was born in November 1969. He studied law at Cambridge University. In 1995, he went into business with his younger brother Bobby Arora, importing homewares from Asia and supplying them to UK retail chains, before buying B&M in 2004, which was then a struggling grocery chain based in Blackpool. In 2017, Simon and Bobby cashed in £215m of shares and reduced their stake in B&M by a quarter, three years after taking it public. The B&M headquarters is based in Liverpool. | Submit Photo: Submit
3. John Whittaker and family
Net worth of £1.775bn. John Whittaker (far left) is the chairman of the Peel Group, which owns the Port of Liverpool and the Liverpool Waters and Wirral Waters site. | AFP via Getty Images Photo: AFP via Getty Images
4. Lord Grantchester and the Moores family
Net worth of £1.2bn. Dairy farmer Lord Grantchester is the grandson of the late Sir John Moores, who founded Liverpool’s football pools nearly 100 years ago. The family later moved into retailing and mail order services through their Littlewoods empire. Lord Grantchester himself worked in the business for many years. Some stores were sold in 1998 and the pools side of the empire was offloaded in 2000. Proceeds from those deals and past dividends were worth at least £445m. A larger windfall followed in 2002, when the remaining department stores and mail-order operation were sold to the Barclay brothers for £750m. A Labour member of the House of Lords, Grantchester serves as a shadow Defra minister. He has property in Cheshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Westminster, Harrogate and Texas. Lord Grantchester sold the family’s shares in EFC in 2019. | Chris McAndrew, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Official portrait. Photo: Chris McAndrew, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Official portrait.