
Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his tech beneficiary spouse, Akshata Murty, merit an estimated £730 million ($844 million). Their total assets (net worth) is two times that of Prince Charles’ estimated £370 million personal fortune.
Interestingly, millions in the U.K. are confronting typical cost of living crisis, bringing up issues over multimillionaire Sunak’s capacity to figure out the experience of ordinary Britons.
Rishi Sunak made history as the country’s first leader of color and its youngest in recent centuries, taking office aged just 42.
He also breaks the record for being the wealthiest-ever occupant of Downing Street — with a fortune estimated to exceed that of King Charles III.
Sunak, who succeeded Liz Truss as leader of the U.K.’s ruling Conservative Party, previously worked as a Goldman Sachs analyst and then a hedge fund manager, before becoming a politician eight years ago.
In any case, he owes quite a bit of his huge fortune to his significant other, Akshata Murty, a tech beneficiary whose dad, N. R. Narayana Murthy — who spells his family name distinctively — founded the Indian IT organization Infosys.
Together, the couple has an estimated fortune of £730 million ($844 million), as indicated by the Sunday Times Rich List.
Most of Murty’s wealth was gotten from her 0.93% stake in Infosys — which as of now has a market cap of around $75 billion.
Nonetheless, Murty also owns Catamaran Ventures U.K., the British arm of her father’s venture capital and private equity firm, which has stakes in a portfolio of companies including a luxury furniture brand co-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s eldest daughter.
The couple, who met while studying MBAs at Stanford University, also reportedly owns at least four properties worth an estimated £18.3 million, including an apartment in California.
Prior to entering Downing Street, their main residence was a five-bedroom house in Kensington, London, worth about £6.6 million, while they spent weekends at a Grade II-listed retreat in Yorkshire, according to The Guardian.
Sunak and his wife’s personal fortune is well above that of the U.K.’s former richest prime minister, Edward Stanley, who was elected in 1852 and had a net worth of around $440 million in today’s money, according to Guinness World Records.
It is also more than twice as much as the wealth of King Charles III and his queen consort, which is estimated at roughly £370 million.
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That estimate excludes the value of the wider crown estate — a diverse portfolio of buildings, artworks, forests and fields worth billions of pounds — which is not owned personally by the king but rather held by the monarch only for the duration of their reign.
Sunak’s installment as prime minister is thought to mark the first time the residents of Downing Street have been wealthier than the residents of Buckingham Palace.
Indeed, the former finance minister came up against sharp criticism earlier this year over his wife’s “non-domiciled” status, which excluded her from paying tax on her earnings outside the U.K. The loophole, though legal, is estimated to save the family £20 million in U.K. taxes.
Murty later promised to give up that status and start paying taxes on her full income. But Downing Street has not responded for confirmation that she had done so.