Inventor James Dyson now UK’s wealthiest person after Dyson vacuum cleaner firm cleans up
Record 2018 profits for the company, which is moving its UK headquarters to Singapore, sees its founder’s personal fortune increase to US$13.8 billion
James Dyson, the inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner, is now the wealthiest person in Britain after his company bagged record profits in 2018.
Earnings at Dyson reached £1.1 billion (US$1.4 billion) for the year – up from £801 million in 2017 – boosted by demand for new hair products, the company said on Tuesday.
The results added about US$3 billion to his wealth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 richest people.
Dyson, 71, is now worth US$13.8 billion. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the fortune of its founder and chairman.
The gain catapults him ahead of Jim Ratcliffe, the founder of chemicals manufacturer Ineos Group, and aristocratic land owner Hugh Grosvenor, the seventh Duke of Westminster, whose family has owned land since 1677.
Dyson, one of Britain’s biggest technology companies, has benefited from a growing customer base in Asia, where it now gets more than 50 per cent of its profit.
In November, Alibaba Group Holding Limited – the Chinese multinational conglomerate specialising in e-commerce, retail, internet and technology, which owns the South China Morning Post – said that some of its top-selling products during its annual Singles’ Day event on November 11 came from Dyson.