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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with wife Akshata Murty: Bad run on the stock market
Photo: STEFAN ROUSSEAU / AFP
For Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty, 2022 was apparently a year to write off: According to estimates by the Sunday Times, the British Prime Minister and his wife lost a good 200 million pounds last year. That was more than 500,000 pounds a day, the newspaper calculated.
Sunak's wife Murty holds just under one percent of the shares in the Indian IT giant Infosys, which her father co-founded. The company's share price fell by around a fifth, the Sunday Times reported.
The Times estimated the couple's fortune at £529 million, up from £730 million a year ago. In the "Sunday Times Rich List" of the wealthiest Britons, Sunak and Murty fell from 222nd to 275th place. But they are still the richest residents of Downing Street in the history of the seat of government, the newspaper emphasized.
Sunak had earned a lot of money himself before his political career as an investment banker. Murty, however, brought significantly more fortune into the marriage.
Investigation into possible conflicts of interest
The couple's prosperity plays a role in the political debate again and again. Investigations are currently underway against Sunak as to whether he concealed possible conflicts of interest. Murty holds shares in a company that has been subsidized by the state. Even as finance minister, Sunak got into trouble because of his wife's financial interests: Murty had benefited from a special legal status that allowed her to pay taxes in India instead of the UK. When this became public, she relinquished her special status.
At the head of the "Rich List" is the Hinduja family, which owns the Indian conglomerate of the same name and has significantly increased its estimated fortune to £35 billion.
mic/dpa-AFX