Scotland's richest billionaires revealed in Sunday Times Rich List

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William Grant drinksImage source, William Grant & Sons
Image caption,
Glenn Gordon and his family, who run the William Grant & Sons distillery in Banffshire, top the Scottish list with a fortune of £2.5bn

A record number of billionaires with a Scottish connection feature in a list of the UK's wealthiest people.

The 11 billionaires, with a combined fortune of more than £16.2bn, are included in this year's Sunday Times Rich List, to be published on Sunday.

Glenn Gordon and his family, who run the William Grant & Sons distillery in Banffshire, top the Scottish list, with £2.572bn.

The billionaires feature in a 160-page edition of The Sunday Times Magazine.

It reveals the wealth of the 1,000 richest people in Britain.

William Grant & Sons is chaired by Jersey-based Glenn Gordon, the founder's great-great-grandson, and includes Scottish whisky labels Grant's, Glenfiddich and The Balvenie, as well as Hendrick's gin.

Glaswegian John Shaw and wife Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw are ranked second in the Scottish list, having seen significant growth in their personal wealth in the past year.

Image source, Biocon
Image caption,
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and her Glaswegian husband John Shaw have been ranked second in the Scottish list
Image caption,
Sir Ian Wood is third on the list

Their fortune now totals £1.756bn, with £606m of gains from a sharp rise in the value of Biocon, the Bangalore-based pharmaceuticals business in which they have a £1.6bn stake.

Sir Ian Wood, one of the leading players in Aberdeen's oil boom years, is third on the Scottish list, with a £1.712bn fortune.

He gave £10.7m in the past year to NHS Grampian to build a car park at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, which is free to patients and visitors. The 75-year-old now devotes much of his time to charity through his Wood Foundation, set up in 2007.

'Seismic change'

The Scottish top 10 also features Scottish estate owner and former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed and his family, Mahdi al-Tajir, owner of mineral water firm Highland Spring, the Thomson family, owners of publisher DC Thomson, high street retailer Philip Day, the Clark family, of the Arnold Clark car dealership, and Jim McColl of Clyde Blowers.

In joint 10th place are financier Jim Mellon and Norwegian industrialist siblings Trond Mohn and Marit Mohn Westlake.

Robert Watts, compiler of the list, said: "Our list of Scotland's wealthiest people epitomises the seismic change we've seen over 30 editions of The Sunday Times Rich List.

"This is now largely a group of self-made individuals, with people like Sir Ian Wood and Philip Day growing billion-pound businesses through their vision and tireless endeavours.

"The days when the Rich List was dominated by aristocrats and inherited wealth are over."

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