Insider publishes an annual rich list for the North West, ranking the top 50 wealthiest business people in the region based on their estimated net worth, and has turned the spotlight on individuals with ties to the Liverpool City Region.
1. Tom Morris and Family – discount stores
Tom Morris is one of the UK’s most successful retailers and he and the family boast a reported fortune of £5.170bn.
Home Bargains was founded in Liverpool’s Old Swan district in 1976. There are now nearly 600 Home Bargains stores around the UK with almost 27,000 staff.
The discount retailer has also thrived during the cost-of-living crisis, with profits climbing by 13 per cent to £332.4m on record sales of almost £3.8bn.
Home Bargains is reportedly now worth £5bn and wealth outside the company adds an additional £170m.
2. The Arora Family – discount stores
Another discount retail clan, Simon, Bobby and Robin Arora have a combined net worth of £2.1bn.
The Arora empire began back in 2004, when the brothers paid £525,000 for a small chain of 21 shops called B&M Bargains.
Today, the Speke-headquartered low-cost retail group is worth £4.6bn and has 1,100 stores.
In July 2024, for the first quarter of the financial year, the discount retailer announced that revenues had grown by 2.4 per cent on the year prior, generating £1.34bn.
3. Lord Grantchester and the Moores family – farming and retail
Dairy farmer Lord Grantchester is the grandson of the late Sir John Moores, founder of Liverpool’s football pools.
The family later moved into retailing and mail order services through their Littlewoods empire. Lord Grantchester himself worked in the business for many years.
Some stores were sold in 1998 and the pools side of the empire was offloaded in 2000. A Labour member of the House of Lords, he has property in Cheshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Westminster, Harrogate and Texas.
The family have a reported net worth of £1.205bn.
4. Mark and Neil Radcliffe – plumbing
Liverpool-based Mark Radcliffe set up his bathroom supplies outfit from a garden shed in 2000.
He floated Victorian Plumbing on the stock market in 2021, and now Radcliffe and his brother Neil own 59.4 percent of the Skelmersdale-based company.
The brothers’ shares are worth £179.1m – up £40.2m over the past year. Earlier in 2024, Victoria Plumbing bought ailing rival Victoria Plumb for £22.5m.
The pair’s net worth is valued at £440m.
5. John Hargreaves and family – retail
Monaco-based businessman John Hargreaves was born in Liverpool.
Hargreaves founded and built up the budget clothing giant Matalan and he once paid himself a £250m dividend from the group.
He and his family’s total net worth is valued at £400m.
6. Tom and Phil Beahon – sports kits
Raised in Bebington in Merseyside, the Beahon brothers have shaken up the sportswear world with their label Castore.
Both once avid sports players, the brothers turned their backs on a sporting career to set up a kit maker to challenge Nike and Adidas.
Sir Andy Murray soon took a stake in the business and Castore now kits out England cricketers, rugby clubs and the Oracle Red Bull Formula One team.
The pair’s net worth is valued at £340m, and their brand is valued in the region of £1bn.
At the tender ages of just 34 and 31, Tom and Phil are the youngest entrepreneurs to make this list.
7. David and Richard Knight – industry
Rounding out Merseyside’s richest are David and Richard Knight, who at 2024 were valued at £219m, up from £187m in 2023.
The Knight brothers have grown profits at AHK Group by more than 50 per cent in the past year, finding work from recycling, biomass and other opportunities created from the greening of the economy.
The Prescot-based firm provides inspection, analysis and other services to the mining and agriculture industries.
The fifth-generation family business originally known as Alfred H Knight has sites in Europe, Latin America, Asia, Australia, Africa and Canada.
After record profits of £24.8m in 2022, AHK has an estimated worth of £200m.
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