FORTUNE SUNAK. While Rishi Sunak has just been appointed British Prime Minister, his fortune raises questions. How did the man get so rich? Will the millionaire be credible at the head of the government in the midst of an economic crisis?
Barely arrived at the head of the British government, Rishi Sunak collects records. The one who became British Prime Minister on October 24, 2022 at the age of 42 is the youngest politician to hold this position but he is also the richest head of government in the history of the United Kingdom according to the Guinness Book. The Sunak couple are at the head of a colossal fortune which is counted in millions of euros, according to estimates by the British press the heritage of the former Minister of Finance and Budget under Boris Johnson amounts to 730 million pounds sterling or more than 840 million euros. Enough to make some of the country’s great fortunes pale and even that of the royal family, half as important according to The Sunday Times with 350 million pounds, the equivalent of 420 million euros.
Where does Rishi Sunak’s fortune come from?
Son of a public health doctor and a pharmacist and scholarship student at Stanford, today Rishi Sunak enjoys a colossal fortune of several hundred million euros. A heritage among the most important in the United Kingdom that it owes to several things. The British Prime Minister began to build his fortune before entering politics, working as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and then in hedge funds at the service of companies in the City of London such as TCI or Theleme Partners. Giants of the financial sector where he landed after successful studies at Oxford and Stanford. These very well paid activities enabled him to collect several million euros during his career in the private sector.
Most of Rishi Sunak’s fortune is actually that of the couple formed by the Prime Minister and his wife Akshata Murthy, daughter and heiress of India’s fifth fortune, the founder of the computer company Infosys. The First Lady already owns a share of the shares estimated at nearly a billion dollars in the company which weighs 100 billion. The heritage of 730 million pounds sterling therefore represents the accumulation of the wealth of the Sunak couple.
Rishi Sunak’s fortune, a handicap as Prime Minister
Neither Rishi Sunak’s multi-hundred-million fortune nor real estate assets are a secret in the UK. But isn’t being a millionaire a handicap for the new head of government? According to the words of Guardian, the question divides. Some, like MP Rachael Maskell, consider the Conservative “disconnected” from the daily lives of British citizens. Multimillionaire and campaigner against inequality Gary Stevenson also believes that Rishi Sunak’s wealth raises questions especially in relation to the policies that the man pursued when he was Minister of Finance and Budget: “He is undoubtedly the most wealthy to have ever sat in parliament, and as chancellor he oversaw the biggest rise in inequality ever.”
On the contrary, others do not sum up the new British Prime Minister to his fortune and are above all waiting to know the policies defended by Rishi Sunak. “There are people with money and people without. You can’t blame him, but you can ask him to run a government that takes care of the people,” a trader told the British newspaper praising the ex-minister skills: “Everything he predicted pretty much happened. He warned that tax cuts would lead to rate hikes. I think he knows what’s going on and that he will do a good job”.
There remains a question of size: the credibility of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister and in times of crisis. The politician has always opposed the logic of Liz Truss to increase the number or the amount of aid financed by the State and to lower taxes, measures supposed to relieve the portfolio of the British. But then how does he intend to restore the economy without increasing the financial difficulties of citizens already aggravated by the 10.1% increase in inflation over one year? Above all, it will be difficult for the Prime Minister to demand efforts from the citizens when he is still swimming in opulence.