Indians top UK's list of rich people; top 1,000 own 518.9 bn

 The Hinduja brothers have topped UK's list of 1,000 richest people, including other Indian- origin industrialists Lakshmi N Mittal and Lord Swraj Paul, with a combined fortune reaching a "phenomenal" £518.9 billion  or one-third of Britain's annual GDP.

Srichand, 78, and Gopichand Hinduja, 74 - who run the multinational Hinduja Group conglomerate with interests across automotive, real estate and oil - moved up from third position last year to top the UK's billionaire charts this year with a fortune of £11.9 billion, according to The Sunday Times Rich List 2014 made public on sunday.The London-based Hindujas edged out steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal, who rose one position upwards to the third rank with £10.25 billion, even as and Russian business chief Usmanov, who topped the list till last year, fell to the second place after his estimated fortune dropped to £10.65 billion.

 “Last year, the Hindujas sold a 49 per cent stake in a Saudi Arabian lubricants maker, Petromin, for more than 200 million pounds. Property investments in India have added £ 200 million. The family's IndusInd bank is capitalised at about 2.7 billion pounds. Hinduja Automotive turned over about £1.5 billion in 2012-13,”the paper said.

Wealthiest women

According to the list of 1,000 richest men and women, Britain's wealthiest people are richer than ever before, with a combined fortune of £518.9 billion – equivalent to a third of the nation's GDP.

The rich have surged to new heights with their wealth rising by 15.4 per cent on last year's total of £ 449.6 billion. It means the wealth of the top 1,000 has doubled since the financial turmoil in 2009, rising from 258 billion pounds that year, the newspaper said.

The list also includes NRI industrialists such as Prakash Lohia, Lord Swraj Paul and family, Anil Agarwal and Ajay Kalsi and family in the top 100. Further down the list are British Sikh hotelier Jasminder Singh and family at 121st rank with 840 million pounds and , Navin and Varsha Engineer at 123rd position with £810 million from their pharmaceuticals business.