The Asian Rich List: Rushdie joins the big guns of business

Britain's 300 leading Asian millionaires have increased their wealth by 50 per cent to more than £14.3bn, reports Nicholas Pyke

The wealth commanded by Britain's leading Asian businessmen has risen by a staggering 50 per cent in the past 12 months.

The wealth commanded by Britain's leading Asian businessmen has risen by a staggering 50 per cent in the past 12 months.

The figure, to be revealed in this week's Asian Rich List for 2004, shows the 300 millionaires are together worth £14.3bn. It underlines their position as the most successful group of Commonwealth immigrants since the war, demonstrating not only financial acumen, but a depth of political and cultural influence.

Yet the growing influence of south Asian arts and entertainment on national life, as evidenced by films such as Bend It Like Beckham and TV shows such as The Kumars at No 42, is barely recognised in the list. Instead, the collection continues to be dominated by business and manufacturing.

Heading the list is the steel baron and Labour donor Lakshmi Mittal, with assets worth £3.5bn, followed by the controversial Hinduja brothers, Sri and Gopi, who are valued at £2.1bn.

The list, sponsored by Sunrise Radio, a commercial Asian station, will be launched on Wednesday. Dr Avtar Lit, the chief executive of Sunrise, is prominent among the millionaires of the electronic media. So is the TV producer and entrepreneur Waheed Alli, a Labour peer.

The absence of British Muslims from the list is likely to provoke comment. Hindus and Sikhs appear to be overwhelmingly dominant in the wealth stakes, with East African Asians doing particularly well. One explanation, said Dr Lit, is the past reluctance of some immigrant communities to embrace Britain fully. In the early years, many families either dreamt of going back home or spent substantial time abroad. This, he suggested, has largely changed.

"We think the list is an important yardstick for measuring the Asian community in the UK. The Asian communities have been here for about 40 years now," he said. "They have moved away from working in foundries and factories into business and the mainstream of national life."

The author Salman Rushdie continues to prosper. With a wealth calculated at more than £7.6m, Rushdie heads a group of artists and entertainers that includes the actor Sir Ben Kingsley and the director Gurinder Chadha, the woman behind the hit movie Bend It Like Beckham. She is worth more than £4.3m.

The Jatania brothers, responsible for Lipsyl and Stergene detergent, are third in the overall list with £650m. Fourth position is held by a new entry, Anil Agarwal, a previously little-known mining magnate, at £540m. The Waymade prescription drugs empire of brothers Vijay and Bhikhu Patel puts them fifth, with assets of £425m.

There is no place for the biggest Asian names from television on the list. The actress and director Meera Syal, star of Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42 is missing. So is her co-star Sanjeev Bhaskar and the film director Shekhar Kapur.

Syal, who also collaborated on the hit West End musical Bombay Dreams, was listed last year but has dropped off. The result is that Gurinder Chadha - currently working on the new, much-hyped film Bride and Prejudice - is the only woman present entirely in her own right.

Martin Bashir, the television interviewer, said that dedication lay at the root of success, irrespective of people's ethnic origin. "I came from a poor, working-class background. What my father did was commit himself to certain things, and one of those was hard work."

Dr Lit, 54, landed at Gravesend with his mother in 1962. He said that British Asians have been so successful they have even started to influence the cultural life of northern India as well as Asian communities in the US and Canada, particularly through music. "The tail is now wagging the dog," he said.

Salman Rushdie (more than £7.6m)

Bombay-born Rushdie, 56, is the leading representative of the arts in the Asian Rich List. 'Midnight's Children', only his second novel, won the 1981 Booker Prize, but in 1988 'The Satanic Verses' earned him a fatwa from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, for blasphemy against the Koran.

Lakshmi Mittal (£3.5bn)

Mittal, who heads the list, caused controversy with a £125,000 donation to Labour at the last election. Within weeks, Tony Blair had written a letter supporting an attempt by Mittal's steel company, LNM, to take over Romania's state-owned steel industry. Mittal, 53, is founder and majority owner of LNM.

Gurinder Chadha (more than £4.3m)

Chadha, born in Leicester, began her career as a BBC news reporter. She rose to prominence by directing and screenwriting the hit movie 'Bend It Like Beckham'. She is now filming a Bollywood version of Jane Austen, 'Bride and Prejudice', starring Aishwarya Rai, who has been tipped as the next Bond girl

Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja (£2.1bn)

The brothers have stakes in global finance, telecommunications, film and oil. Britain's second richest Asians hit the headlines when it was suggested that Peter Mandelson helped Srichand obtain a British passport after their $1.5m (£825,000) donation to the Millennium Dome. In India the brothers have been accused of receiving kickbacks from Swedish firm Bofors.

The Jatania family (£650m)

Brothers Vin, Danny, George and Mike are in third place, thanks to Lipsyl lip balm and Gold Spot breath freshener. Mitesh, known as Mike, Jatania is the youngest of the four brothers at 38 and the public face of their Lornamead business empire. Their father came to Britain in the 1960s from Gujarat in India, via Uganda. They live in Marble Arch, central London.