Charles III Why isn't the richest person in the UK? Which is the wealth of the British king?
The new British king Charles III ascended the throne, which made him one of the richest people in Britain. In our impression, the monarchs of a country are the richest. Why is the British king not a rich man in Britain? Which is the wealth of the British King? Let’s talk about the wealth of the British king. Charles III’s wealth source was mainly inherited by his mother Elizabeth . When the UK inherits in heritage, any assets worth more than 325,000 pounds will be subject to a 40% tax. But the monarch can be opened up because according to a clause reached by then Prime Minister John Major in 1993, any inheritance of "monarch to monarch" can be exempted from inheritance tax. With this clause that is beneficial to the British royal family, the royal wealth will not shrink when it is passed on from generation to generation. Of course, anyone who inherits private assets from the Queen must pay inheritance tax, except for the Charles King.
Queen's family
Unlike Elizabeth II who ascended the throne at the age of 26, it has been 64 years since Charles III was canonized in 1958. If we calculate that the title of Duke of Cornwall in 1952, Charles III has been the de facto crown prince for 70 years, and on May 8 this year surpassed Prince Liechtenstein to become the longest-awaited crown prince in world history. After ascending the throne, Charles inherited the Lancaster Principality worth more than 650 million pounds.
Charles III
Charles was very visionary and hardworking. He established his own business empire long before he inherited his mother's kingdom. Over half a century, he has turned royal real estate into a multi-billion dollar portfolio and one of the most profitable businesses in the royal business. Over the past decade, Charles has formed a huge team of professional managers , who have increased the value and profit of his portfolio by about 50%. Laura Clancy, author of Running a Family Business: How the Royal Family Manages its Image and Our Money, said King Charles changed the once-stagnant royal account. “The royal family has been steadily commercializing over the past few decades,” Clancy said. "It operates like a commercial enterprise, with a CEO and more than 150 employees." She said that, as considered just a "land pile for gentlemen," it now operates like a company.
Elizabeth II ascended the throne in 1952, further standardizing the royal wealth accumulated by dynasties, established companies such as "Royal Heritage", "Royal Mines", "Crown Real Estate", "Crown Investment", etc., and allocated the real estate, land and sea areas of Scottish , England, and Wales to these companies for management, and then divided into four parts: "urban investment", "rural investment", "Windsor Manor" and "marine holdings". Those who should rent should collect rent, free of charge, and those who should operate should make money by themselves, and those who should donate should be given free of charge, and those who should donate should be given free of charge, and those who should donate should be given free of charge, and those who should donate should be given free of charge, and those who should donate should be given free of charge, and those who should donate should be given free of charge, and those who should donate should be given free of charge, which can be called a "big enterprise".
It is very complicated to piece together the assets of the royal family and are mainly divided into four parts.
The first is the Royal Real Estate and Property Authority, which supervises the monarch's assets through the board of directors. Charles, as King, will serve as chairman of the board, but he has no final say on how to manage the company. Historically, the British monarch owned a large amount of land, but since the 17th century, the British king handed over this part of the land to the government. The British Ministry of Finance returned the land profits in a certain proportion every year, which was used for royal official expenses, palace maintenance, etc.Public information shows that these land and resources include Regent Street, , the prime area of London's West End, many villas and castles, more than 140,000 hectares of land and forests, more than half of the beaches in the UK, as well as stone mines, wind power generation, etc. , such as the St James neighborhood in the West End, is not only a living and entertainment neighborhood where the top wealthy people gather in the UK, but also one of the most luxurious commercial streets in the UK, and one of the highest rents in the world. The owner of this street is the British royal family, and this income alone is astronomical. According to official statistics, the asset is worth more than US$19 billion.
Royal members have the right to earn rental income from their official properties, but because the royal family does not own these assets, they cannot profit from any assets sold. This year, the asset will generate about $363 million in profits, which will be paid to the Ministry of Finance, which will pay the royal family a sum called "monarchal appropriation" depending on the profit. If the profit is lower than the previous year, the government must pay for the amount out of its own pocket. In 2017, the government increased royal appropriations to 25% of profits to cover the cost of repairing Buckingham Palace .
The latest sovereign appropriation received by the royal family is about $100 million, and members of the royal family, including Charles, use the money for the royal family's official duties, such as visits, paying wages and housekeeping. It does not include the royal security costs, which are also paid by the government, but the fees are confidential.
The second is the Duke of Lancaster. This asset valued at $949 million belongs to anyone who sits on the throne. The total area of is about 18,433 hectares. Although farmers living in the principality do not have to pay taxes, the land divided into five farms has to pay rent, such as the Salvek Manor with an annual rent of about 900,000 pounds, the Krue Manor with an annual rent of 1.5 million pounds, etc., are already mature farms with a lease term of more than 30 years. There are also two skills colleges and an 18-hole golf course, a nursing home, three hotels, a football club added in 2018, etc., and the net profit in 2017 was close to 20 million pounds.
Lancaster Castle
The third is the Duke of Cornwall, The Principality of Cornwall, covering an area of 54,500 hectares, is a royal territory, distributed in 23 counties, and the entire coastline is owned by the royal family. Charles has been in charge of it as the crown prince for a long time. Today, the Principality of Cornwall has the iconic "oval" cricket stadium, lush farmland in southern England, seaside vacation rentals, office spaces in London and a supermarket warehouse in the suburbs. This 130,000-acre property portfolio is almost the same as Chicago's area.
Cornwall Territory
"When Charles took over the Duke's Territory at the age of 21, the financial situation of the Duke's Territory was not good," said Marlene Koenig, a royal expert and writer, who was poorly managed and lacked diversity. In the 1980s, Charles played a more active role in the portfolio and began hiring experienced managers. An example of its financial strength is that last year the Duke's territory generated $28 million in profits, compared to the official salary of Charles as the crown prince, which was $1.1 million, pale in comparison. Most importantly, it does not pay corporate taxes like most British businesses, nor does it publish details of investment.
The last sum of money, also the most mysterious, is the private wealth of the royal family. According to the British wealth annual catalog "Rich List", released by the " Sunday Times ", the Queen's net worth is approximately US$430 million. This includes personal assets such as Balmoral Castle and Sandringham Manor, which she inherited from her father. Most of her personal wealth is kept secret. In addition to real estate and investment, the British royal family's cultural relics are the largest private art collection in the world. According to the information released in 2020, all the royal collections are distributed in 13 royal castles, with more than 150,000 works on paper (including well-known painters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, etc.), as well as more than one million pieces of furniture, ceramics, textiles, weapons, jewelry, clocks, musical instruments, tableware, plants, manuscripts, books, sculptures, etc.
art exhibits
Putting aside these visible wealth, the British royal family's ability to attract traffic in the fashion circle is also the world's top. Since Elizabeth II, almost every dress-up has been changed to a global imitation, and a "queen style" has been blown directly in Europe, attracting major luxury trendy brands to follow the trend. Since the British government has not restricted the Queen and royal members from participating in business and endorsement activities, the royal family can also be nuggets in the fashion circle, but this precedent has not been set yet. According to Professor Karin of the Kingston Academy of Art in London, the estimated value of royal members in this regard is between 1.5-2 billion pounds.
In addition, the royal family can also obtain an income called "Supplementary Monarchal Funding", and mainly comes from tourism, tourism and other income in Buckingham Palace and other places. In the fiscal year 2021-2022, the amount rose slightly to 9.9 million pounds, compared with 9.4 million pounds in the last fiscal year. Although the latest fiscal year of rose by 5%, it fell by more than 50% from £20.2 million in the year before the epidemic. The main reason is still related to the impact of epidemic control on tourists visiting royal palaces. royal expenditure exceeded £100 million in the previous fiscal year.
Forbes counted in 2021 that the total wealth of the British royal family was about US$28 billion, while British media such as BBC believe that it is at least between US$35-50 billion. So, apart from the royal assets that cannot be bought and sold to the government for management, how much money is the private property belonging to the British king?
First, the Duke of Lancaster's territory was valued at £600 million to £700 million, and his Duke of Cornwall was also passed to the new crown prince Prince William because of his ascension. The second is the private property left to him by the Queen According to the Business Standard, valuation consulting firm Brand Finance calculated that the British royal family as a brand in 2017 to be valued at about $88 billion, while Forbes estimated that the Queen's private property such as investments, art, jewelry and real estate would be worth about $500 million. The personal property of the queen also includes Sandringham Manor and Balmoral Fort . The Queen's jewelry and royal collection, with personal wealth including private artworks and horse racing. In 2017, the Queen earned nearly £7 million from horse racing alone.
Queen also owns her own real estate all over the world, for example, she owns a villa in New York, a plantation in Mississippi , and a horse farm in Kentucky . The queen started riding horses at the age of 6 and owned about 25 horses under her name. Some media speculated that horses will eventually be inherited by Charles , because Charles is the only member of the royal family who once loved riding, but he probably would not continue to cultivate horse racing like his mother.
Among all the Queen's assets, the most eye-catching thing is the Queen's crown and jewelry. Queen is known as "the person with the most jewelry in the world". Some of the treasures she owns have been around for more than 800 years. Her crown jewelry is mainly divided into three categories: one is inherited through the royal family, one is purchased by individuals, and the other is given by others.
Therefore, part of her jewelry is an asset belonging to the "monarch" and part of her private property that she can freely decide on. The crown and jewelry of the royal family, like the Principality of Lancaster, will be inherited by Charles, but cannot be sold.
Charles, who has been the first heir for so many years, is also a perfect super rich man. Charles owned private property before he ascended the throne, and did not include his hereditary Duke of Cornwall (52,000 hectares, worth 1 billion pounds), because this territory has been handed over to Prince William. It is a British royal tradition to pass the Cornwall territory to the crown prince.
To sum up, Charles III's personal private property was 87 million pounds plus about 650 million pounds of Lancaster plus about 430 million pounds of the Queen's private heritage, a total of about 1.2 billion pounds. So how many pounds can this 1.2 billion pounds rank on the UK's wealth list?
According to the 2022 British Rich Rankings released by Forbes, is currently the richest man in the UK in 2022, with a net worth of 16.8 billion US dollars, ranking first in the UK and 121st in the world. Let's take a look at the UK wealth rankings:
UK wealth rankings
UK wealth rankings
UK wealth rankings
UK wealth rankings
is converted into US dollars. Charles III has about 1.4 billion private property. This wealth can rank about 40 on the UK personal assets rich list. Of course, this is the ranking of private wealth. If family wealth is included, it is another ranking. The media speculates that the total valuation of the British royal family is between 80 and 100 billion pounds. If we use this theory, the wealth of the British royal family should rank first in the UK Rich List, and on the world Rich List, the wealth of the British royal family can also squeeze into the top ten. Forbes World Rich List in 2022:
1, Elon Musk 219 billion US dollars,
2, Jeff Bezos : $171 billion
3, Bernard Arnold and the family's wealth: $158 billion
4, Bill Gates : $129 billion
5, Warren Buffett : $118 billion
6, Larry Page : $111 billion
7, Larry Ellison Larry Ellison: $116.2 billion
8, Sergey Brin Sergey Brin: 1143 $100 million
9, Gautam Adam Adam Adam Adam: $112.1 billion
10, Mukesh Ambani Mukesh Ambani: $100.4 billion
11, Steve Ballmer Steve Ballmer: $99.6 billion
