Source : Al Arabiya / 19 May 2014

The wealth of the 10 richest Arabs in the UK has soared by 50 percent in the last year, according to an annual ranking by the Sunday Times.

The Saudi Arabian business mogul Mohammed Bin Issa al-Jaber, who made his fortune in the hotels, restaurants and food industries, was ranked the richest Arab living in the UK, with a fortune of about $10.36bn, the newspaper said.

Jaber and the other nine wealthiest Arabs in the UK have a combined fortune of $26.2bn – about 50 percent more than the$17.5bn shared by last year’s top ten.

The Jeddah-born Jaber, who owns several luxury hotels in Europe, is said to have increased his wealth by £1,645m over the last 12 months to reach 13th place on the Sunday Times list.

There were at least 17 Arab names on the Sunday Times UK rich list, which counted the wealthiest 1,000 residents in the country.

Mahdi al-Tajir, the UAE’s former ambassador to Britain, was the second highest-ranking Arab name on the list, at 52nd place with an estimated fortune of $2.8 billion. His wealth was amassed from businesses in oil, metals, property, transport and industry.

Wafic Said, who came to Britain from Syria, ranked as the third richest Arab in Britain, with an estimated fortune of $2.5 billion.

Mohammed al-Fayed, the Egyptian business magnate, was ranked 71st on the Sunday Times list, with a net worth estimated at $2.2 billion. Fayed boosted his wealth with last summer’s sale of Fulham football club for a reported £150m-200m, following the 2010 sale of the luxury Harrods department store to Qatari investors for £1.5bn.

Others on the Sunday Times list include Ayman Asfari (with wealth estimated at $1.9bn), Qatar’s former prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani ($1.3bn) and Mo Ibrahim ($1.1bn).

The wealth of the top-ten UK Arabs is increasing much faster than the rest of the richest Britons. The average rise of all 1,000 names on the Sunday Times annual Rich List stands at 15 percent.

Combined, the 1,000 billionaires and millionaires are worth a massive £518.98 billion ($872.84 billion), according to the newspaper.

Sri and Gopi Hinduja, heads of the multinational conglomerate Hinduja Group, topped the list overall, with a fortune estimated at £11,900m ($20 billion).