London: Non-Residential Indian (NRI) steel industrialist Lakshmi Mittal has emerged as UK's fifth richest person in 2004 with assets worth 3.5 billion Pounds, an increase of 2.19 billion Pounds in one year.

The Hinduja brothers, Sri Chand and Gopi Chand, chairman and president of the Hinduja Group respectively come 11th with assets worth 2.1 billion Pounds as against 1.836 billion Pounds in the previous year, 'The Sunday Times' Rich List 2004 declared today (Apr 18, 2004).

The assets of Lord Swraj Paul and family have been assessed at 100 million Pounds and he is listed as 384th among the 1,000 richest people in the country.

Roman Abramovich, 37, the Russian tycoon who bought Chelsea football club last summer and now has homes in London's Belgravia and West Sussex, is at number one on the list with a fortune calculated at 7.5 billion Pounds. His wealth is increasing at a rate of 441.2 million Pounds a year equivalent to more than 50,000 Pounds an hour.

Fifty three-year-old Mittal, who owns LNM, the world's second-largest steel company, said, "China is LNM's biggest export market but growth of the country's own steel industry with its huge export potential and lower costs represents the greatest threat to our industry in the medium term."

"It is a case of consolidate or die," he said.

However, steel prices have risen by more than a third since early 2002, mainly on the back of huge demand from China's booming economy. On the back of these figures, Mittal has had the Rich List's biggest rise in wealth, also making him the richest Asian in UK, the report said.

Mittal, the fifth richest, is ahead of Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Airlines chief (2.6 billion Pounds).

LNM is thriving and now has more than 20 steel plants in 12 countries. Sales in 2003 should be about 6.4 billion Pounds with operating profits of 1.1 billion Pounds.

Although he likes to describe himself as a son of the desert from Rajasthan, Mittal learnt about the steel industry in Kolkata. His father Mohan moved there after the 1947 partition and built up a steel business.

Young Lakshmi excelled at university, topping his class in business and accountancy. After working in the family business, Mittal moved to Indonesia in 1976 and with his father's backing founded a steel plant. In 1995 he separated the company from the family business and went his own way. He settled in London, but retains his Indian passport.

Aside from LNM, which is valued at 2.3 billion Pounds, Mittal has a 77 per cent stake in Ispat, a New York-listed steel company, which has risen sharply in value to about 500 million Pounds.

According to the report, the Hinduja business empire now embraces oil trading, banking, telecommunications and trucking in India, Europe and the Middle East.

"Their interests in India are doing particularly well. Hinduja TMT, their Information Technology and outsourcing company, has captured a large part of the software traffic moving from the West to the much cheaper India. Their stake in it is worth about 500 million Pounds and other assets such as the lorry maker Ashok Leyland have shot up to nearly 300 million Pounds," the report said.

"We can see another 800 million Pounds in other (Hinduja) businesses, such as Gulf Oil and the cable maker ICML. The family's banking operations in India (Indusind Bank) and Switzerland (Amas Bank) add perhaps 145 million Pounds, and they have a 5.11 per cent stake in the phone company Hutchinson Max in Gujarat worth 62 million Pounds. In all, their quoted stakes and private businesses are now worth 2 billion Pounds. Liquid assets such as bonds and cash add 100 million Pounds," the report said.

According to the list, the top 1,000 have accumulated over 200 billion Pounds among them. In past 12 months, their fortunes increased at 15 times the current rate of inflation, the report said. The wealth explosion is partly explained by the property boom and the return of favourable trading on the stock market, but Britain has also become a magnet for foreign billionaires attracted by its sympathetic tax regimes.

Besides, Mittal, Hindujas and Lord Paul, 20 other NRIs figure in the rich list. They include Jatania brothers (650 million Pounds), Anil Agarwal (540 million Pounds), Bhikhu and Vijay Patel (425 million Pounds), Gulu Lalvani (400 million Pounds), Jasminder Singh and family (350 million Pounds), Tom Singh and family (290 million Pounds), Bharat and Ketan Mehta (175 million Pounds), Ramesh and Pratibha Sachdev (110 million Pounds), Manubhai Madhvani (85 million Pounds), Bharat Shah and family (75 million Pounds), Lord and Apurv Bagri (65 million Pounds), Dr Avtar Lit (65 million Pounds), Sir Gulam Noon (50 million Pounds), Sandy Chadha and family (40 million Pounds), Pradip and Manesh Damecha (70 million Pounds), Dinesh Dhamija (100 million Pounds), Tej and Bobby Dhillon (40 million Pounds), Remo Dipre (73 million Pounds), and Moni Verma (42 million Pounds).