The number of billionaires in the West Midlands has increased by one - with property magnate Tony Gallagher joining ten others in the 2020 ranking of the richest of the rich.

Gallagher joins Aston Villa owner Nassef Sawiris, who once again tops the Birmingham Post Rich List, with his £5.7 billion wealth - which has increased from £5.2 billion last year.

Football plays big part in the wealth generated by our ranking of the West Midlands millionaires and billionaires, sponsored by bespoke investment management company Quilter Cheviot.

Villa's chairman, Wes Edens, also features in the 2020 list and is ranked number five with £2 billion to his name.

See the 2020 Birmingham Post Rich List online here

Wolverhampton Wanderers owner Guo Guangchang makes a return to the billionaires club along with West Bromwich owner Guochuan Lai.

Other areas of concentration for West Midlands wealth include construction, property and manufacturing.

Like 2019 other billionaires in the latest research include JCB Lord Bamford and family, Phones4U founder John Caudwell, and - the oldest person on the list - 100 year-old air-conditioning tycoon Jacques Gaston Murray and family.

The 2020 Birmingham Post Rich List features one new entrant in the top 50 billionaires and millionaires - Irish born Noel Sweeney who founded Chasetown Civil Engineering 46 years ago.

There’s also two returnees from past Rich Lists - pharmacists Christopher and Michael Taylor and self-effacing Brummie rocker Jeff Lynne.

The entry price for making the 2020 list has stayed the same as last year.

You’ll  need a personal fortune of at least £115 million to qualify for a place.

The winners and losers

There are winners and losers in the West Midlands’ wealth game.

Those involved in construction, property and manufacturing have all seen an increase in their wealth over the last year, or at the very least they have protected their position.

Lord Bamford is among the biggest winners, along with housebuilder and motorcycle maker John Bloor; Lord Paul whose international Caparo empire has made a dramatic recovery over recent years; and Richard Harpin whose Walsall-based Homeserve household insurance business is performing very well - particularly in the rapid growth area of the USA.

Retail is struggling nationwide as life on the high street gets tougher and the online/offline battle between bricks and clicks continues.

But Dean Hoyle of The Works, oriental food king Woon Wing Yip, car sellers Keith Bradshaw and Terry Lister and Christopher and Michael Taylor’s community pharmacy business have managed to perform well despite the pressures.

What factors have contributed to the results

The Birmingham Post Rich List has been collated by journalist Ian Strachan.

He has attributed several factors to the rise in wealth among the West Midlands top millionaires and billionaires.

These include football, Brexit and the general election.

Ian said: “One outcome of the pre-Christmas general election is that the billionaires and millionaires in our region are more likely to stay in this country, paying taxes, creating wealth and investment and sustaining many thousands of jobs.

"Before the election Birmingham-born mobile phones tycoon John Caudwell - 8th in the 2020 Rich List - had an animated discussion with shadow chancellor John McDonnell on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme in which he bluntly stated that if Labour won the election he, and many like him, would be packing their bags.

"He said Labour’s manifesto commitment to increase taxes for the country’s top earners would result in an exodus of the wealthy - and therefore their wealth - to countries with a less aggressive attitude to success.

"That’s all water under the bridge now of course, and the region’s wealthy are free to concentrate on what they do best - making a success of their ventures and making money in the process.

“Despite worries about the impact of Brexit impact, slowing growth or economic uncertainty, things continue to go pretty well if you’re at the top of the wealth pile.”

Aston Villa fans celebrate in the stands

The football effect

Midlands football clubs continue to attract investment from around the world. Wolves and West Bromwich Albion’s Chinese owners continue to invest and are reaping the rewards with both teams putting in a good season. Money from Egypt and the US rescued Aston Villa from the financial doldrums and helped them get back into the Premiership. Now they’ve just got to stay there.

How the rich list is selected

A word about the rules of engagement for the Birmingham Post Rich List.

It is geographically focussed on the West Midlands, concentrating on the areas covered by our three Local Enterprise Partnerships: the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP which also covers a large part of Staffordshire and parts of Worcestershire, the Black Country LEP and the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP.

The 50 multi-millionaires on our 2020 list all either live, work or make a significant economic or cultural contribution to the areas covered by these three LEPs.

We continue to put an emphasis on fortunes that are used to benefit or enrich the West Midlands and its immediate area.

In assessing who goes into the list and who stays out there is inevitably some subjectivity involved, and we can only work from publicly available information.

We have no idea how much is stuffed under mattresses or in hidden bank accounts.

We looked at the personal wealth, property interests, shareholdings, company valuations, asset valuations, liabilities, and other known wealth of people who either live and/or work in the areas covered by the three Local Enterprise Partnerships in our region, or were brought up here, or who have significant business interests here.

We took longevity and commitment to the economic wealth of the region into account.

See the full Birmingham Post Rich List 2020 here

Who are the West Midlands' 2020 billionaires?

1. Nassef Sawiris (Aston Villa) £5.7 billion Football/Construction – 2019 No 1 £5.2bn

Egyptian businessman Sawiris, 58, is executive chairman at Aston Villa and he and Wes Edens each bought a 27.5 per cent stake in Aston Villa in the summer of 2018 enabling them to take majority control.

Villa were promoted back to the Premier League in 2019 and the owners are planning an extensive £100 million programme of changes to the ground.

The Sawiris family fortune comes from a multifaceted conglomerate Orascom Construction Industries which has interests in telecommunications, construction and tourism.

2. Lord Bamford and family (JCB) £4.8 billion Manufacturing – 2019 No 2 £4.5bn

Strong export demand in India and China has resulted in profits rising impressively to £447 million and turnover hitting £4.1 billion as the global construction equipment market reached an all-time high of one million machines.

JCB has also opened a new £50 million factory in Staffordshire turning out more than 100,000 cabs a year and creating 200 jobs. However, yellow goods are falling in some markets – particularly Europe, while the company is braced for lower global demand in the year ahead.

3. Guo Guangchang (Wolverhampton Wanderers) £4.5 billion Football/Investment – 2019 No 3 £4.2bn

Guo Guangchang, 52, is the major shareholder and runs the Fosun business, which has investment assets in the Europe including Club Med, nursery brand Silver Cross and entertainment group Cirque de Soleil.

Guangchan is also the owner of Wolves, which he bought for £30 million in 2016, and who finished seventh in the Premier League last season after promotion, are currently enjouying a Europa League cup run. Wolves are now the richest club in the West Midlands according Deloitte’s new Football Money League rankings, turning over £167m in the 2018/19 season.

4. Guochuan Lai (West Bromwich Albion) £2.2 billion (£2.5bn) Football/Eco-towns – 2019 No 4 £2.5bn

Guochuan Lai and his company Yunyi Guolai (Shanghai) Sports Development paid former chairman Jeremy Peace around £200 million in 2016 for an 88 per cent controlling interest in WBA Holdings Ltd. Following relegation profits dipped but the Baggies are eyeing up automatic promotion this season.

As former general manager of Chinese landscaping giant palm he helped develop the company from a regional landscape engineering company to one of the biggest in China. He remains a director of a number of Palm’s subsidiaries including Belt Collins International, Palm Landscape (Hong Kong), and Palm Design Holdings. Palm is also the principal sponsor of West Bromwich Albion.

5= Lord Paul of Marylebone & Family (Caparo) £2 billion Manufacturing – 2019 No 8 £1.5bn

Lord Paul’s business interests have recovered from the steel industry crisis which saw much of its UK assets go into administration before being acquired by the Gupta family’s Liberty House Group.

Some of the Caparo group – of which Lord Paul is chairman – survived, and it still has extensive property investments in the UK and Switzerland, as well as hotels.

5= Wes Edens (Aston Villa) £2 billion Football/Investment – 2019 No 5 £1.9bn

Investment banker Wes Edens is co-chairman of Aston Villa, having taken a 55 per cent stake in the club jointly with Nassef Sawiris in 2018.

The 58-year-old is co-founder of Fortress Investment Group, a private equity firm set up in 1998, and focussed on investment in major infrastructure projects, including a £2.5bn project to build a private passenger railroad in Florida. In 2007 Fortress, where he is still co-chief executive, was one of the first private equity funds to go public. In 2017 it was bought by SoftBank for more than £3bn.

7. John Bloor (Bloor Homes/Triumph) £1.9 billion Manufacturing/Construction – 2019 No 6 £1.85bn

John Bloor
John Bloor

John Bloor’s two main businesses are breaking records. Results published in 2019 show a pre-tax profit of £190 million on record sales of £1.7 billion.

Bloor Investments – parent of Bloor Homes and Triumph Motorcycles – continues to report soaring profits and revenue.

Triumph Motorcycles made a £9.5 million profit in the year to June 2019 despite challenging market conditions. Bloor Homes is one of the largest privately-owned housebuilding groups in the UK and turns over £1.1 billion.

8. John Caudwell (Phones4U) £1.6 billion Mobile Phones – 2019 No 7 £1.56bn

The Birmingham-born businessman, aged 66, entered the realm of the super-rich in August 2006 when he sold his Phones4U mobile phone empire for £1.46 billion.

Now most of his interests are in property through his Caudwell Collection business. He has also set up charities such as Caudwell Children, which over the past 20 years has helped provide specialist equipment, treatment and therapy for sick and disabled children in the UK.

9. Jacques Gaston Murray and family (Andrew Sykes) £1.25 billion Manufacturing – 2019 No 9 £1.2bn

Jacques Gaston Murray is the oldest person in our list – he will be 100 next month – but he still takes an active interest in his Wolverhampton air conditioning and heating firm, despite being resident in Switzerland.

One of his two main businesses is the Wolverhampton-based AIM-listed Andrew Sykes Group, supplying industrial heating and air conditioning. The business is building its revenue both in the UK and overseas, with turnover rising to £78.6 from £71.3 million for the year to December 2018. Pre-tax profits grew to £20.7 million.

10. Lord Edmiston (IM Group) £1.1 billion Property/Automotive – 2019 No 10= £1bn

The IM Group is made of the property company IM Properties and the International Motors automotive franchises and has net assets of well over £600 million. Pre-tax profits exceed £60 million.

He is one of the UK’s biggest philanthropic donors and is devoting more of his time to religious and educational charities. He set up Christian Vision in 1988, a worldwide charity aiming to help a billion people.

11. Tony Gallagher (Gallagher Developments) £1 billion Construction – 2019  No 12 £925m

Tony Gallagher
Tony Gallagher

Tony Gallagher is now busy building up a £1 billion private rented sector portfolio in London and other major cities. He’s not short of the cash to do it, having pocketed £525 million from the sale of Gallagher Estates in 2017. The Warwick-based business was acquired by a London housing association.

Gallagher Developments, his retail and property investment and development business, continues to acquire and develop prime commercial land.