BILLIONAIRE BYE BYE
Ali Lyon reports for City AM (July 9. 2025)
UK loses more billionaires than any other country
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The UK has lost the most billionaires of any country in the world in the last two years, fresh data has shown, exacerbating fears that Britain’s footloose super-rich residents would continue to flee the country if forced to pay a wealth tax.
According to updated numbers from New World Wealth, the UK lost a quarter of its billionaire population over the course of 2023 and 2024, the highest share of any major economy including sanction-hit Russia.
The country lost 18 billionaires to other jurisdictions over the two-year period, researchers said, taking the total number residing in the UK down to 72 by the end of 2024.
The figure is considerably higher than the 12 that quit second-placed China and the 10 that left India, which suffered the third largest exodus. Russia lost eight billionaires overall; the second-highest in percentage terms.
The findings will also not include the more recent high-profile departures from the UK of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, chemicals tycoon Nassef Sawiris, or property investors Richard and Ian Livingstone.
All four billionaires left Britain since the start of this year, after the government announced a host of punitive tax rises targeted at the country’s wealthiest taxpayers, including abolishing the non-dom regime, applying VAT on private school fees and raising the top rate of capital gains tax.
Marc Acheson, global wealth specialist at Utmost Wealth Solutions, told City AM that a series of decisions by consecutive governments meant the findings were “unsurprising”.
“This outflow began in March 2024 when the Conservatives announced the end of the resident non-dom regime and then accelerated at pace following the measures announced at the Autumn Budget,” he said, adding: “As an internationally mobile group, they have the means and most incentive to leave.
“They are moving rapidly to countries that are competing aggressively to welcome them with more attractive regimes.”
Wealth tax could drive more billionaires from UK
The figures also bring into sharp relief growing fears that a wealth tax would accelerate the rate of departures from Britain, after a deluge of warnings from tax lawyers and wealth advisers that the UK is losing its wealthiest residents at a record rate.
Keir Starmer and his spokesman have refused to rule out a blanket levy on wealth forming part of the government’s upcoming Budget, as he and Chancellor Rachel Reeves look to plug a roughly £20bn hole in the public finances without raising any taxes on “working people”.
As recently as April, Reeves vowed she would not impose any new wealth taxes in the Autumn Budget.
“We’re not interested in a wealth tax,” she told The Telegraph. “Our priority is to grow the economy and that’s the way that you make working people better off and secure better public finances.”
Since then, the Treasury has been forced to weather a storm of higher state spending commitments, including higher borrowing costs and several expensive U-turns like the £4bn decision to row back from welfare reforms.
Economists remain sceptical that a blanket tax on wealth would generate meaningful revenues for the Treasury, with some of the opinion that the levy could cost the Exchequer money overall.
Paul Johnson, the outgoing director of the non-partisan Institute for Fiscal Studies, has previously said that implementing the levy would be “practically impossible”.
And pointing to failed attempts in other countries, Tax Policy Associates boss Dan Neidle said it would be “arrogant” of the Labour Party to assume it would work in Britain.
TAX OR CRIME?
But what is the real factor driving the wealthy out?
The UK’s The Guardian newspaper has reported:
India’s wealthy ‘fear London is worse than Delhi for muggings’
Fear of crime in UK capital is one of biggest concerns of rich Indians, says entrepreneur
Indian business people are avoiding being out and about in Mayfair over fears they could be mugged for their expensive watches after a 27% rise in “theft from a person” in London, an entrepreneur has said.
Devin Narang, an entrepreneur, told a meeting attended by David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, that fear of crime in London was one of the biggest concerns of India’s rich elite.
“People are being mugged in the heart of London – in Mayfair,”
Narang, a member of the executive committee of the federation of Indian chambers of commerce and industry, said at a meeting in New Delhi, according to the Financial Times. “All CEOs in India have had an experience of physical mugging and the police [in London] not responding.”
Narang said rich Indians considered it safer to walk around New Delhi than London. “Indians do carry expensive things, but the police not responding is a matter of concern,” he said. “London is a walking city. You don’t want to look over your shoulder all the time. You don’t want to go to a city where you’re likely to be mugged in the streets. It doesn’t make you feel comfortable. You can walk anywhere in Delhi and you won’t be mugged.”
Lammy, who is in New Delhi for trade talks, told the meeting that during his short visit, several other people had also raised concerns about muggings and thefts in central London. He said that “security and fighting crime” would be key priorities under Labour.
Thefts from the person – which includes muggings, bag-snatches and mobile phone theft – in the City of Westminster, which includes Mayfair, rose by 40% last year to 25,650, while in London they rose 27%. There were 72.4 reported thefts from the person per 1,000 people resident in the borough, according to Crime Rate, a website that analyses crime statistics.
In the past five years, 29,000 watches have been reported stolen to the Met, with one in five of those thefts involving violence, according to a freedom of information request by database The Watch Register.
A spokesperson for the mayor of London’s office, which oversees the Metropolitan police, said: “The Met have stepped up their response to robberies – which are rising nationally – and have specialist teams out proactively targeting the most prolific offenders and robbery hotspots.”
Last month, the force revealed that it had deployed undercover “victim” officers wearing expensive watches in order to catch thieves. Sir Mark Rowley, the Met police commissioner, praised plainclothes officers for their bravery in volunteering to be targeted by violent robbers in two operations across South Kensington, Chelsea, Soho and Mayfair. He said the officers – who wore luxury brands such as Rolex and Patek Philippe – had shown “real guts” to go out and “be robbed by violent criminals”. The operation has led to more than 20 convictions so far.
The Met police’s commander of intelligence, Ben Russell, said of the thieves: “There are groups of young men, mainly in their 20s and 30s, hanging around outside bars and clubs spotting people, and they know what they’re looking for.
“They’re not stealing people’s fakes – they are targeting original, genuine, expensive watches. They’re getting right up in people’s faces, they’re manhandling victims, they’re spending quite a bit of time talking to victims to make sure they know what they’re stealing.”
Britain is creating a rational case for the rich leaving its shores to escape expropriation, whether by taxation or at knifepoint.