The self-made woman makes her mark among UK super-rich

ANOTHER YEAR, another clutch of multi-millionaires. So many people are stinking rich these days that entry to the list of Britain's wealthiest 1,000 people now requires a minimum pounds 21m fortune.

Reaching that figure was not a problem for the 185 people who have catapulted themselves into the Sunday Times Rich List for the first time, including Paloma Picasso, the artist's daughter, the highest new entry at pounds 350m.

The 1999 list, published yesterday, features more women than before: 71, compared with just 57 in 1998. Ten years ago, when the league table of riches was first compiled, only six women made the grade, including the Queen, valued this year at pounds 250m

Compared with some other women, the monarch is a pauper. The wealthiest woman in the country - Lady Grant-chester, matriarch of the Moores family, owners of the Littlewoods shopping and football pools empire - has pounds 1.5bn at her disposal.

The other woman with billionaire status is Chryss Goulandris, the Greek shipping heiress. She is married to Tony O'Reilly, the food and media tycoon whose interests include The Independent, and their joint fortune is estimated at pounds 1.1bn.

Top of the list overall is Hans Rausing, the British-based Swedish industrialist, who weighs in with a cool pounds 3.4bn. Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the Labour minister under political pressure in the controversy over genetically modified food, has dropped from pole position to number two because of a fall in the share price of his supermarket chain.

The table of affluence includes 16 billionaires, 137 aristocrats, and two MPs, both Conservatives: Michael Heseltine, valued at pounds 150m, and Alan Clark, with a more modest pounds 35m. The entrepreneurial culture is clearly flourishing and making the go-getters a lot of money; more than 70 per cent of the entries made their wealth rather than inheriting it.

Other new entries include Michael Flatley, the dancer, who lives in London and has a fortune estimated at pounds 50m, and Toni Mascolo and his brothers, the founders of the Toni and Guy hairdressing group, said to be worth pounds 70m. Also new on the list, thanks to the on-going revival of the Great British sandwich, are Julian Metcalfe and Sinclair Beecham, the men behind the Pret A Manger food chain, while the reappearance of the Bee Gees on the music scene has boosted the net worth of British-born Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb to pounds 90m.

Riches are relative, of course, and all of the British tycoons and aristocrats in the Sunday Times league table pale into insignificance when placed in the wider context of Europe and the world.

Hans Rausing is only number 19 on the list of Europe's fabulously wealthy, which is headed by Paul Sacher and the Hoffman family, owners of the Swiss pharmaceuticals group, worth pounds 15.48bn.

British billionaires do not figure at all among the world's 50 richest people. They are headed by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, which the survey says has a pounds 36.25bn fortune.

Anne McElvoy, Review, page 4