THREE family groups based in west Suffolk are the wealthiest in East Anglia, according to figures compiled for the Sunday Times Rich List.Heading the league table are 53 year-old Kirsten Rausing, of Newmarket, and her brother Jorn, who also has property in the region.

By Graham Dines

THREE family groups based in west Suffolk are the wealthiest in East Anglia, according to figures compiled for the Sunday Times Rich List.

Heading the league table are 53 year-old Kirsten Rausing, of Newmarket, and her brother Jorn, who also has property in the region. They are the children of Stockholm-born Gad Rausing, the co-founder of the Tetra Laval packaging company who died in 2000 leaving £4.98billion to his widow and children.

The joint wealth of Kirsten and Jorn Rausing is calculated at £2.490bn, a slight fall from 2005. She is a successful racehorse breeder in her own right who has lived in East Anglia for more than 20 years and owns stud farms near Newmarket and in Ireland.

Mr Rausing is based in London and sits on the board of Tetra Laval.

The wealth of the Earl of Iveagh, 36, who lives at Elveden, and the Guinness family, whose investments are in brewing and property, is second on the regional list at £760m, an increase of £35m over the past 12 months.

The family has a £255m stake in Diageo, the global food company which owns the Guinness brewery. It has a Canadian company, British Pacific Properties, which owns real estate in Vancouver. The Earl inherited £62m in Guinness shares when his father died in 1992.

Third regionally are David and Richard Thompson at £470m. David, aged 70, owns Cheveley Park Stud in Newmarket, one of the world's top racehorse companies, but his wealth came originally from the Hillsdown food group, which he started in 1975.

He sold half his stake for £145m in 1987 and the rest later for a similar amount. A rise in racing assets at Cheveley has caused the compilers of the rich list to raise the valuation of the family by £20m.

Bill Gredley, 11th richest in the region, is another leading racehorse owner who also owns a stud near Newmarket. The Gredleys make money from Unex Holdings, a Cambridgeshire property development firm which they control. Profits more than doubled in 2003-4 to £4.5m, with net assets up from £101m to £125m.

East Anglia's biggest riser up the rich list is Ardeshir Naghshineh, 53, whose family fortune has increased by £79m since 2005. He founded Norwich-based Targetfollow, which owns office, industrial and retail buildings.

He bought the Centre Point tower in London's West End last year for £85m and has another half dozen property groups which add more than £23m to his wealth.

At number 17 is Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, whose wealth has been calculated at £80m.

The 18th annual Sunday Times rich list, which claims to be the definitive guide to wealth in the UK, will be published in full this weekend, listing the 1,000 wealthiest people and families.