Bangladesh-born food processing industry chief Iqbal Ahmed and his family have made their mark on an annual rich list released in the UK.
The Ahmed family registered an impressive £12 million hike in their fortune over the previous year to be worth an estimated £210 million and have been ranked at No. 560 in ‘The Sunday Times Rich List’ of the UK’s 1,000 wealthiest people, up from last year's rank of 584.
Ahmed, a member of the new board advising the UK’s Department for International Trade led by minister Liam Fox, and his brothers – Bilal and Kamal – have been recognised in the list for creating one of Europe’s leading frozen food businesses.
“The 61-year-old and his brothers transformed an Oldham grocery store into Seamark, a leading European processor, exporter and distributor of frozen food,” the listing notes.
While turnover at the Manchester-based business rose during 2016 to £55.4 million, it made a loss of £968,000 later. But a separate company, Ibco, had £34.5 million sales in the same year.
“Fresh information about operations in Bangladesh and America lead us to raise the family. Ahmed owns glamorous Manchester restaurant Vermilion and adjoining nightclub Cinnabar,” the listing adds.
Born in Balaganj, Sylhet district, Ahmed moved to the UK when he was 15 years old and began by importing shrimp and today his diversified group has interests across shipping, hotel and real estate development, hospitality, and food.
This year’s Rich List is topped by chemicals entrepreneur Jim Ratcliffe, for the first time, followed by Indian-origin Hinduja brothers.
Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja are listed with an estimated fortune of around £20.64 billion, compared to Ratcliffe’s £21.05 billion.
"Britain is changing. Gone are the days when old money and a small band of industries dominated the 'Sunday Times Rich List'. Aristocrats and inherited wealth has been elbowed out of the list and replaced by an army of self-made entrepreneurs,” notes Robert Watts, who compiled the list.
"Today's super rich include people who have set up businesses selling chocolate, sushi, pet food and eggs. We're seeing more people from humble backgrounds, who struggled at school or who didn't even start their businesses until well into middle age," he said.
Ratcliffe, described as a self-made British-born industrialist who came from very humble beginnings to launch chemical firm Ineos, has jumped to top place from 18th in 2017 by amassing nearly £15.3 billion over the past year.
British-American industrialist-turned-media mogul Sir Len Blavatnik came in at third place with £15.26 billion.
The year 2018 marks the 30th edition of what is claimed to be “Britain’s definitive guide to wealth”. The list finds that the 1,000 richest individuals and families in the country have a combined wealth of GBP 724 billion — a 10 per cent rise on last year’s figure of £658 billion. The billionaire count has risen to 145 — 11 more than last year.
The super-rich needed a wealth of £115 million to break into this year’s ‘Sunday Times Rich List’, nearly four times the GBP 30 million necessary to appear in the first edition back in 1989.
There are also a record number of 141 women in the list this year.