Rich pickings in the Channel Islands

Monday 25 April 2016

In order to be the richest in the Channel Islands, you can’t just live here – you actually have to own one.

And so, once again, the wealthiest residents in our small archipelago are Brecqhou owners Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, which was published yesterday.

Interestingly, the newspaper reports that the 81-year-old twins “own the Channel Island of Sark” which will come as news to most, not least the Seigneur and Chief Pleas. The Barclays’ spat with the island’s authorities is well known but this would certainly be one of their canniest and most surreptitious purchases.

The Barclays are worth a cool £7 billion and they are the 12th richest in the British Isles, according to the ST.

Another island-owner, Sir Peter Ogden, who holds the long-term lease for Jethou, also makes the list. The founder of Computacenter and avid yachtsman is worth £370m. His magnificent Maxi 72 is, appropriately, named after his 44-acre home.

Some islanders on the list will be familiar names; others less so. Simon Nixon, whose house has shot up above St Brelade’s Bay, is now worth over £1 billion, according to the newspaper. The MoneySuperMarket.com founder may have riches beyond our wildest dreams but that doesn’t stop him regularly joining the throng for a bite to eat down at El Tico or hopping on the morning Easyjet to Gatwick.

The Clarke family, worth £500m, is a regular in the annual publication, which suggests that there’s still money to be had in St Helier property - despite C Le Masurier’s best efforts to stop the taxpayer-owned Jersey Development Company’s JIFC.

The list always contains residents who just get on with their lives: Graham Tuckwell (investments, £273m), Tony Buckingham (oil, £425m), James Vernon (hedge funds, £250m), Steve Gibson (transport, £195m) and Gordon Crawford (computers, £122m), as well as others who have been in Jersey long enough to have perhaps invested more time and energy: David Crossland (travel, £200m), Brian De Zille (clothing, £120m) and Nigel Jagger and family (computers, £110m), for example. Jack Higgins (novels, £60m) might have lived in Jersey for years but he still makes the Irish list.

At the other extreme, Sir Philip and Lady Green (retail, £3.22 billion) are included on the ‘Channel Islands list’ by the Sunday Times, based on the fact that their investment company is here. If that’s the criteria, then perhaps Jersey has more wealthy Islanders than it ever imagined.