Who is Gopi Hinduja - the UK's richest man? Billionaire businessman tops The Sunday Times Rich List for fourth time in a row
Top of the Sunday Times UK Rich List 2025 is Indian-born businessman Gopichand Parmanand Hinduja. The 85-year-old, better known as Gopi, might not be a household name - but some of the company his family has been involved with, will be.
He started his working life working for his father's textile business, which also traded goods in Bombay, India, and Tehran, Iran, alongside brother Srichand, who passed away in 2023. As they progressed and showed acute business acumen, the pair expanded, buying up other companies as their Hinduja Group business - and their wealth - grew.
They acquired famous names such as Ashok Leyland, from British Leyland, and Gulf Oil in the 1980s and established banks in Switzerland and India in the 1990s. In 2012, the Group acquired the world's largest metal fluids manufacturer - Houghton International - for more than $1 billion.
Their wealth grew and grew, with Gopi taking the number one spot outright after the death of his brother, with an estimated fortune of £35.304 billion - but that is a drop of almost £2 billion on last year, when he was also the UK's richest person.
Gopi Hinduja wife and children
Born in 1940, Gopi is married to Sunita Hinduja. The couple share three children - two sons and a daughter; Sanjay Hinduja, Dheeraj Hinduja and Rita Hinduja. Of Sindhi heritage, Gopichand and his three brothers are teetotal and vegetarian.
In 2015, Sanjay married his long-time girlfriend, designer Anu Mahtani, with the wedding costing an estimated £15 million. It featured entertainment from the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Nicole Scherzinger and actor Arjun Kapoor. That's what having a billionaire father can buy you.
In 1997, Gopichand became a British citizen. His brother was naturalised the following year - but the process led to the resignation of then-New Labour MP for Hartlepool, who admitted he had made a phone call to an immigration minister in support of SP's bid for citizenship.
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