Autonomy founder Mike Lynch added £74m to his personal fortune in 2007
Dr Mike Lynch, Group CEO and founder of Cambridge software giant, Autonomy is the richest tech entrepreneur in the region according to The Sunday Times Rich List 2008 - seeing his personal fortune increase by £74m in the past year.
Lynch, 42, saw profits in the company he founded in 1996 soar by 89 per cent in the first quarter of 2007. The meaning-based computing company has performed well in America as well as in the UK and Lynch’s stake in the business is worth £212m. He has £40m of other assets, carrying him to £252m and seventh on the East Anglian Rich List and a rank of 323 nationally, according to The Sunday Times' research.
The research put Lynch some way ahead of 'the father of Silicon Fen', tech investor and entrepreneur Dr Hermann Hauser who is ascribed a personal wealth of £117m, ranking him 17th regionally and 696th equal nationally, down from 557th equal last year. The £8m reduction in his personal wealth appears to be accounted for by the donation of that value he made to Cambridge University at the beginning of this year for the creation of a new 'enterprise forum.'
Another notable performance in the technology sphere came from Andrew and Paul Glover, founders of Java-based online computer games specialist, Jagex. The company was founded in Cambridge in 1999 and only took on its first outside investment in 2005.
The continued success of Jagex's online game, Runescape expended the Glovers' personal wealth by £3m to £109m, according to the research. The company employs over 400 at its bases in Cambridge and London.
Dr Mortimer Sackler, who along with his brother Raymond owns the Purdue Pharmaceuticals empire - including Napp Pharmaceuticals on Cambridge Science Park - was the highest ranked in the Life Sciences field at number five. His personal fortune was estimated at £300m.
Kirsten Rausing tops the East Anglian rich list with a fortune that has grown by £675m in the past year, according to research which is published this Sunday, April 27.
With brother Jorn, half the £7 billion value of the family packaging firm, Tetra Laval, is ascribed to her. Their increase in wealth accounts for all but £4m of the overall gains made by the 10 richest in East Anglia this year. The overall number from the region among the 1,000 richest in the UK has dropped by three from last year to 23.
Kirsten Rausing, 55, and brother Jorn, 48, both sit on the board of Tetra Laval, the company co-founded by their late father, Gad Rausing. The development of the Tetra Pak (later Tetra Laval) operation revolutionised the packaging of milk, juices and other liquid food products and made billionaires of Gad and his brother Hans.
Kirsten lives in East Anglia and owns stud farms in Suffolk, while her brother lives in London. When their £335m gains in 2007 are taken into account, it means the siblings net worth has grown by more than £1 billion in the past two years.
Seventeen of the 20 richest in East Anglia featured in last year’s regional Rich List, which leaves room for three new entries, all of whom enter both the regional and national rankings for the first time.
Douw Steyn is the highest new entry, ranking ninth in East Anglia and 397= nationally with a £200m fortune. With his family, he has a £150m stake in the Peterborough-based insurance broker, BGL, formerly known as Budget Group. It has about 2m customers and is worth £300m.
By contrast Andre Serruys and family have made £100m from metal recycling. Metal reprocessor, Easco, based in Norwich, is busy in India and China. Serruys, 51, runs the business, which was sold for more than £100m in 2006 to Sita, the UK arm of the French utilities giant, Suez.
Valued at £120m, Gregory Darling and family are the third new entry in the East Anglian Rich List. The family own Gardline Shipping, established in Great Yarmouth in 1969. The group has evolved into a diverse international group that takes in marine sciences, security, shipbuilding and digital mapping. Gregory Darling, 55, is the late founder’s son who represents the family in the Rich List.
Paul Thwaites, founder and chief executive of the Ashwell Property Group rounded out the top ten of the East Anglia Rich List, with his personal fortune estimated at £180m. His company is behind the CB1 scheme, a major redevelopment of a large portion of central Cambridge around Station Road.
Elsewhere in East Anglia, the fortunes of the wealthy have either remained stable or moved by relatively small amounts up or down. Bernard Matthews, the Norfolk-based turkey tycoon (whose wealth was hit severely last year by bird flu, which knocked him down £129m on his 2006 valuation) has seen a further £27m contraction in his personal fortune over the past year. Matthews, 78, is now worth £146m compared to £173m last year.
The Sunday Times Rich List is based on identifiable wealth (land, property, other assets such as art and racehorses, or significant shares in publicly quoted companies), and excludes bank accounts (to which the paper has no access).
This year, it takes a £80m fortune to make it into the top 1,000 in the Rich List, £10m higher than last year’s £70m qualifying mark and the fifth successive year that the UK entry level has risen by £10m.
The Sunday Times Rich List online doubles in size this year, with the details of a further 1,000 people with wealth above £40m, ranked from 1,001 to 2,000, published on the web at 2pm on Tuesday, April 29 at www.timesonline.co.uk/richlist .
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