The 15 richest Brits in drinks

Based on the Sunday Times Rich List 2020, which came out last weekend, we profile those that have made their fortune from the drinks industry.

Last weekend, The Sunday Times revealed its 2019 Rich List, which charts the rise and fall of the country’s wealthiest individuals in every conceivable sector.

Recent acquisitions, changes in consumer habits, and the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns on sales have shaken up our ranking of the wealthiest men and women in drinks this year.

While there has been little movement at the top, the estimated worths of many Rich List members have fallen due to bars and restaurants being closed, or risen thanks to some canny investment management.

The UK drinks industry is full of multi-millionaires and billionaires blazing a trail of success – but who are the wealthiest folk in wine, beer and spirits in 2020?

Click through to see our profiles on the 15 wealthiest people in the drinks industry today.

 

15. Leonard Russell and Family

 

Position 2019: 775

Position 2018: 601

Worth: £202 million

Rise/Fall: +£50m

Sources: Spirits and Brewing

Leonard Russell, 58, is the managing director of Ian Macleod Distillers, which makes the rapidly-growing Edinburgh Gin brand and well as whisky labels Glengoyne, Smokehead, Tamdhu and King Robert II.

In 2017, Ian Macleod Distillers announced plans to reopen the historic Rosebank distillery in Falkirk, which had been in operation since 1817 until it was closed by Diageo in 1993. Ian Macleod secured an £80m refinancing package to support the revival of the distillery.

Russell’s spirits group was fast to latch on to the UK’s gin boom, launching Edinburgh Gin in 2010. This, coupled with a rise in Scotch exports, took Ian Macleod’s profits to £25.5m between 2017 and 2018, up 65%. The company launched Edinburgh Gin’s first TV ad campaign last December.

14. Martin Dickie

Martin Dickie (left).

Position 2019: 529

Position 2018: 537

Worth: £228m

Rise/Fall: No change

Sources: Drinks

Martin Dickie, 37, co-founded Scotland’s BrewDog with school friend James Watt in 2007. The brewing giant has recently been valued at £1.7 billion after its fifth round of crowdfunding, with more than 132,000 people investing in the business to date.

Dickie has a £213m holding in the company.

13. John Apthorp and family

John Apthorp

Position 2019: 504

Position 2020: 518

Worth: £268 million

Rise/fall: +£7m

Sources: Wine, Food

Mr Apthorp, 82, was a founding member and managing director of the family business of frozen food stores Bejam, eventually selling the chain to Iceland in 1989 for £70m. He also co-founded Wizzard Wines (now Majestic Wine), which his family has a £32.5 million stake in. The company announced a profit warning in September 2016 which led to a 25% decline in value of its shares, following its purchase of Naked Wines.

Already an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), Apthorp was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for charitable services.

Majestic Wine was sold for £95 million last year, giving Apthorp’s remaining 15% interest in the company a boost.

12. James Watt

Watt (left).

Position 2019: 475

Position 2020: 495

Worth: £262m

Rise/Fall: No change

Sources: Drinks

James Watt, co-founded craft beer giant BrewDog with school friend Martin Dickie, also featured in this list.

American private equity group TSG Consumer Partners took a £213m stake in BrewDog in 2017, valuing the business at £968m.

Brewdog is one of a growing group of drinks companies that is using its facilities to produce hand sanitiser for the NHS.

11. Amal and George Clooney

Position 2019: 464

Position 2018: 474

Worth: £275 million

Rise/Fall: +£5 million

Sources: Drinks, Films and Law

Amal and George Clooney are better known for their work in law courts and Hollywood studios than at a Tequila distillery.

Clooney received US$40m for his involvement with Nespresso, and an additional £173 million in 2017, when Diageo acquired Casamigos, the Tequila brand he co-founded seven years ago. Diageo paid $700 million up front for Casamigos, and has said it will pay a further potential $300, million based on its performance over the next decade, making it one of the largest drinks brand acquisitions of the past decade.

Casamigos’ founders – Clooney, property developer Mike Meldman and entrepreneur Rande Gerber, all had equal stakes in the brand. It is thought that Clooney himself made £182m from the sale, and could earn a further another £78m by 2027.

Amal, meanwhile is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, specialising in international law and human rights, which adds £2m to the couple’s fortune.

10. Charles Rolls

Charles Rolls (right).

Position 2019: 316

Position 2020: 448

Worth: £298 million

Rise/fall: -£125m

Sources: Drinks

Former managing director of Plymouth Gin, Rolls is one of the co-founders of premium mixer brand Fever-Tree. Puzzled by the lack of quality mixers, Rolls launched the business in 2005 alongside Tim Warrilow (above left). Fever-Tree is now worth £3 billion.

Rolls sold £253.8m of shares since then and retains a 7% holding, valued at £86.1m.

The Fever-Tree founder announced he would retire from his role as non-executive deputy chairman last month.

9. Tim Martin

Position 2019: 310

Position 2020: 416

Worth: £311 million

Rise/fall: -£126m

Sources: Hospitality (pubs)

Tim Martin is founder and chairman of pub chain Wetherspoon. Born in Norwich and raised in New Zealand, Martin bought his first pub in Muswell Hill, north London, in 1979. Wetherspoon now has around 900 pubs with sales up 5% to £1.69bn in 2017-18.

However, all 874 Wetherpoon pubs have been shut since 20 March, when UK prime minister Boris Johnson told bars, restaurants, hotels, and leisure centres to close their doors to help slow the spread of coronavirus. Like-for-like sales fell 4.5% in the week to 15 March, before pubs closed.

Martin’s company has so far furloughed 99% of its 43,000 employees, paying 80% of staff’s pre-lockdown wages.

In 2018, the pro-Brexit pub owner began removing European beer and wine from the pub chain and has signed a contract with Surrey wine estate Denbies.

8. Vivian Imerman

Position 2019: 340=

Position 2017: 339

Worth: £390 million

Rise/fall: No change

Sources: Food, Spirits

South Africa-born Imerman is the former owner of Whyte & Mackay, the Scottish spirits business famous for the Scotch brand of the same name.

Along with his former brother-in-law Robert Tchenguiz, he sold the business to Diageo subsidiary United Spirits in 2007 for £595 million, for which he received £396 million thanks to his 60% stake in the company.

He was also responsible for the turnaround of tinned fruit giant Del Monte, serving as chief executive from 1989 to 2001, and making £380m from his stake in the company. Since then he has further feathered his fortune through his investment group Vasari and property sales.

Vasari has holdings in food and drink businesses across Europe, Asia and Africa, such as Ethiopian beer brand Dashen and South African wine and spirits business KWV.

7. Richard Caring

Position 2019: 213

Position 2020: 171

Worth: £820 million

Rise/fall: +£170m

Sources: Restaurants, Property

Richard Caring, the Chairman of Caprice Holdings which owns and runs The Ivy chain of restaurants, is the 7th richest person in our ranking. The group has closed all of its restaurants for an “unspecified amount of time” and has also furloughed “the majority” of its workforce as the UK’s coronavirus lockdown forced restaurants to close.

In addition, it plans to take advantage of the 12-month business rates waiver as well as short term working capital loan finance, but according to accounts filed on Companies House this year, the company has received “strong support” from its bankers and Caring to whether the storm.

Caring sold a 25% stake in Caprice Holdings to former Qatari prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani for £200m last year, providing a boost to his estimated worth.

He also owns a 30% share in members club group Soho House, a stake valued at close to £300m.

6. The Earl of Iveagh and the Guinness family

Lord Iveagh

Position 2019: 152

Position 2020: 158

Worth: £906 million

Rise/fall: –£67m

Sources: Property, Brewing

Ned Guinness, the Earl of Ivegh, is a direct descendant of Arthur Guinness, the man who invented the world-famous black stout back in 1759. The Earl moved to Britain in 1991, inheriting his title and about £62m in Guinness shares a year later.

He also owns a 22,000 acre Elveden estate in Suffolk, where he is said to grow 10% of all the onions eaten in the UK.

The Guinness family also owns the Burhill Group which operates 22 golf course and an adventure golf chain Mr Mulligans.

The family’s unpublished stake in Guinness is thought to be worth upwards of £300 million.

5. Alejandro Santo Domingo and Lady Charlotte Wellesley

Position 2019: 55

Position 2020: 69

Worth: £2.031 billion

Rise/fall: –£804m

Sources: Inheritance, brewing, investment

The Sunday Times’ Rich List compilers took £804m off the fifth wealthiest couple’s estimated worth this year, partly due to their interests in AB InBev.

The Colombian-American billionaire Alejandro Santo Domingo married British blue-blood Lady Charlotte Wellesley in May 2017.

Santo Domingo is the Harvard-educated scion of the Bavaria brewery in Colombia, sold by his father Julio Mario (who died in 2011) in 2005 for a 15% stake in SABMiller. The stake is the largest in a diverse portfolio of companies that make up the privately held Santo Domingo Group. He also bought a 20% stake in celebrated Bordeaux winery Château Pétrus in 2018.

Alejandro helped broker SABMiller’s 2016 merger with AB InBev, the maker of Corona beer, a deal that left him with a 1.7% holding in the new owner. AB InBev has seen its share price slide since the pandemic forced governments worldwide to close bars and restaurants this year, cutting off a vital route to market.

Santo Domingo’s AB InBev stake is now worth about £1.14bn, down £490m in a year.

4. Alki David and the Leventis family

Image: wiki

Positon 2019: 58

Position 2020: 59

Worth: £2.35 billion

Rise/fall: +£250m

Sources: Drinks and Media

Living in London, Alki David is a member of the Isle of Man-based Leventis family which merged its Greek bottling business with soft drinks giant Coca-Cola to form Coca-Cola HBC. This is valued at £9.6bn, with the family holding a £2.241bn stake, up £330m in a year.

David himself also owns SwissX medicinal cannabis oil, which received celebrity endorsement from rapper Snoop Dogg and fashion designer Donatella Versace.

3. Glenn Gordon and family

Fifth-generation Kirsten Grant Meikle

Position 2019: 54

Position 2020: 49

Worth: £3.186 billion

Rise/fall: +£304m

Sources: Spirits

William Grant & Sons was founded by the Grant Gordon family in 1887. Now run by the fifth generation of Grant’s descendants, it has grown to become one of the leading players in the international spirits trade.

It produces some of the world’s leading brands of Scotch whisky, including Glenfiddich, The Balvenie and Grant’s. In addition, it also produces Irish whiskey Tullamore D.E.W  and recently acquired the Drambuie liqueur brand.

This year, William Grant & Sons has shifted production at three of its distilleries to make 5 million litres of ethanol to make hand sanitiser, as the industry rallies together to overcome the coronavirus pandemic.

Glenn Gordon was pipped to the post as this year’s richest Scotsman by Danish landowner Anders Povlsen, who came 32nd overall.

2. Carrie and Francois Perrodo and family

Francois Perrodo

Position 2019: 29

Position 2020: 46

Worth: £3.438bn

Rise/fall: -£1.129bn

Sources: Oil, Gas, Wine

The majority of London-based Perrodo families fortunes comes from their interests in the oil and gas industry, with operations in 13 countries producing 450,000 barrels of oil a day.

Since 2006, the family’s business has been managed by Carrie Perrodo, 65, and her eldest son François, 40, after her husband died in an alpine hiking accident.

In February 2019 it carried out a strategic review, with the mooted sale of many assets in the North Sea, where it provides 15% of the UK’s gas.

The family also has an interest in the wine business, with Perrodo’s daughter, Nathalie Perrodo-Samani, in charge of Château Labégorce in Margaux. Her brother Bertrand part-owns wine delivery service 31Dover.com.

The Perrodo estate’s estimated worth came down this year as a result of falling oil prices.

1. Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken and Michel de Carvalho

Position 2019: 7

Position 2020: 9

Worth: £10.3 billion

Rise/fall: -£1.7bn

Sources: Inheritance, Brewing, Banking

Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, 62, owns a controlling interest in the world’s second largest brewer, Heineken.

She inherited her 25% stake from her late father Freddy Heineken, grandson of the Dutch brewery’s founder, in 2002.

The de Carvalho family stake in Heineken is now valued at £12bn.

2018’s sales figures for Heineken were the brewer’s best in a decade which it attributed to the rise of alcohol-free beers. Heineken owns brands including Lagunitas, Newcastle Brown Ale and Strongbow, and has a minority stake in London craft brewer Beavertown.