Wealth of property moguls halves in a year

The wealth of UK property tycoons has more than halved in the last year, the new 2009 Estates Gazette Rich List is expected to reveal tomorrow.

Property’s richest 100 people have seen more than £43bn wiped off their collective fortune since the height of the property boom.

The seventh edition of the list, published with tomorrow’s Estates Gazette, will reveal a 56% drop in the wealth of the richest men and women in UK property, from a total of £77.4bn in 2007 to ‘just’ £34.3bn this year.

Between 2007 and 2008, fortunes dropped by 10%, but the true damage caused by the recession was in evidence this year, with the collective wealth of the top 100 falling by 51%.

Blackpool Tower owner Trevor Hemmings was the worst hit this year. Compilers Philip Beresford and Dominic Prince, also authors of the Sunday Times Rich List, estimate that Hemmings’ wealth has fallen from just over £1bn last year to £300m this year – a 69% drop.

Over the entire boom-to-bust period, London’s West End investor Chris Lazari fared worst. He has seen £886m wiped off his fortune since 2007. His wealth totalled £1.3bn in 2007, £680m in 2008 and £425m this year.

The Barclay brothers, Sir David and Sir Frederick, suffered almost as badly. The fortune of the owners of the Daily Telegraph has fallen from £1.8bn in 2007 to £1bn this year, although they are still among the top ten richest property tycoons in the country.

There were a few risers in the Rich List. The Candy brothers more than doubled their fortune this year from £120m in 2008 to £330m in 2008.

Estates Gazette editor Damian Wild said: “This has been an extraordinarily tough year for everyone and property’s elite have not escaped unscathed. Some have fared better than others – and by and large it is the wealthiest that have fared worst.

“Few outside this rarefied circle will shed any tears over that, of course. But these people have built up fortunes at least once, so don’t be surprised if they do so again.

“I don’t think anyone is expecting the industry to recover in 2010. But property is a magnet for entrepreneurs and many of our list will do very well out of this downturn.”