Mistry family top Rich List again with net worth of €16.1bn
The Mistry family top the Sunday Independent Rich List once again this year.
They have a combined net worth of €16.1bn, an increase of €500m since last year.
Much of this increase came from the success of the Tata Group, in which the family has a shareholding. The company had a valuation of more than $100bn last March.
Second on the list is the Weston family, who own Brown Thomas and Arnotts, and have shares in Primark.
Samantha McCaughren, Sunday Independent Business Editor, outlines where the Mistry family's wealth has come from.
"This year's Rich List is topped as it always is by the Mistry family, an Indian family with strong Irish connections through the matriarch of the family Patsy who is married to Pallonji Mistry, one of the wealthiest men in India," she said.
"Their wealth comes from one of the biggest companies in the world, Tata group.
Patsy married the head of the family, Pallonji Mistry, who is in his late 80s now, and she is from Hatch Street in Dublin.
"Her husband has Irish citizenship because of his marriage to Patsy, and all the children have Irish citizenship as a result.
"They've also invested in Ireland, they own Jaguar Landrover, and they opened a software engineering centre in Shannon, Co Clare creating 150 jobs, and they have also an online partnership between Tata IT and the Royal College of Physicians.
"The Mistry family have invested in Irish sport as well: Cricket Ireland receives €250,000 a year as part of a ten-year sponsorship and naming rights deal for its cricket academy with the Indian Conglomerate which is owned by the parents of Cyrus Mistry," she said.
Denis O'Brien, the Collison brothers, John Magnier, JP McManus and Dermot Desmond are among the top ten richest people in Ireland, according to the list.
"Other interesting entries are the Collison brothers, two young men from Limerick who have founded Stripe. They're worth about $1bn each, and that's very significant for their young years," Ms McCaughren said.
