Ipswich Town owner Marcus Evans has seen his personal fortune fall by £50million, according to the new edition of the Sunday Times Rich List published today.
Many others on the list are also having tough times amid the coronavirus pandemic - with the newspaper reporting that: “The wealth of the richest in Britain has gone into reverse for the first time in 11 years.”
Businessman Mr Evans, 56, who originally hails from Walsham-le-Willows, near Bury St Edmunds, is listed as now having a fortune of £750m - compared to £800m last year.
He has also dropped from the joint 174th place in the list of the 1,000 wealthiest people in Britain to the joint 188th place.
He founded his company Marcus Evans in 1983 and took over the Blues in 2007.
East Anglia’s richest person, Kirsten Rausing, and her brother, Jorn, have also seen their wealth fall, by £156m - although they still have a joint fortune of £12.1billion. They are in sixth place on the list.
Mrs Rausing’s wealth stems from packaging. Ruben Rausing, Kirsten’s grandfather, founded the Tetra Pak packaging giant in 1951, which became Tetra Laval under the guidance of his sons, Gad, Kirsten’s father, and Hans Rausing.
Estate agent Jon Hunt, 66, who owns Heveningham Hall, near Halesworth, has seen his total wealth fall from £1.4bn last year to £1.3bn in 2020, according to the list.
The Earl of Iveagh has suffered a £67m fall in his personal wealth, claims the list, with his fortune and that of the Guinness family now estimated at £906m.
The Guinnesses have a family estate at Elveden Hall in Suffolk.
Unlike many others on this year’s list, David and Patricia Thompson, aged 84 and 80, have seen their fortune rise by £37m, to £837m. The couple are owners of the oldest Newmarket stud farm, Cheveley Park.
Alfie Best, who created Best Holdings, Europe’s largest residential mobile home park operator, has also seen his fortune rise this year, by £56m, taking his personal wealth to £341m.
The 50-year-old runs the Essex-based Wyldecrest Parks brand, owning 75 holiday and caravan parks, and his business empire now includes mobile homes in America. He appeared in Channel 4 series My Big Fat Gypsy Fortune, while his son, “Alfie Boy”, 23, appeared in reality TV show Absolutely Ascot.
James and Selina Hopkins, who own Suffolk-based house builder Hopkins Homes, have an estimated fortune of £300m, a £7m rise on last year’s figure.
Suffolk’s own megastar, Ed Sheeran, has seen his fortune rise by £40m to an estimated £200m. Last year’s tour, which ended with a series of concerts in Ipswich in August, is described by the Sunday Times as the highest-grossing tour in history. The 29-year-old, from Framlingham, has been named the richest musician in the UK aged 30 or under for the second year running.
Overall, however, Britain’s super-rich have lost more than £54bn in the past two months amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
The combined wealth of the UK’s 1,000 richest people has plummeted for the first time since the financial crash, with some billionaires counting losses of up to £6bn since last year, it adds.
The list says that a number of billionaires have also sought to use the Government’s emergency furlough scheme, under which staff are paid 80% of their salary by the state up to £2,500 a month.
Norfolk-born inventor Sir James Dyson is the richest person in the UK for the first time, as the Brexit-backing entrepreneur saw his wealth grow by £3.6bn over the past year, climbing to £16.2bn.
Sir James, 72, who was born in Cromer, topped the list despite losing £500m of his own money on an electric car project which was scrapped.
READ MORE - Suffolk star Ed Sheeran tops young musicians rich list
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here