Laxmi Mittal still tops world’s rich persons’ list

The fortunes of the richest people in Britain have soared by 30 percent in a year while much of the country is struggling to recover from recession, according to an annual list published today. Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and his family remain top of the list with 22.45 billion pounds (34.5 billion dollars, 25.8 billion euros), more than double the 10.8 billion pounds they were estimated to have last year. Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who owns Chelsea Football Club, retains his second place on the Sunday Times Rich List with wealth of 7,400 million pounds, up 400 million pounds from last year. The compilers of the 2010 list say the rise in the wealth of Britain's richest individuals is the largest since the list was first published 21 years ago. The recovering health of global stock markets and property values following the global downturn has fuelled the rise. The 1,000 richest people in the country increased their wealth by 77 billion pounds last year, bringing their total wealth to 335.5 billion pounds. Another ten individuals joined the ranks of billionaires in the past 12 months -- there are now 53 in Britain. A boom in commodity markets lifted the fortunes of the mining magnates Alisher Usmanov, up 213 percent to 4.7 billion pounds, and Anil Agarwal, up 583 percent to 4.1 billion pounds.