What Happens When All the Billionaires Leave

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

Benjamin Stupples (0:09)

I've been doing this job for 10 years, covering the ultra wealthy. This is the biggest population shift that I've covered.

Sarah Holder (0:15)

For generations, the UK offered a special tax deal to a certain group of ultra wealthy residents, people who lived in Britain, but who held their wealth overseas.

Benjamin Stupples (0:25)

Let's say I'm an Indian billionaire living in Knightsbridge in London and my main source of wealth is in Mumbai. I am not paying UK tax on the dividend that I'm drawing out of that multinational business overseas.

Sarah Holder (0:38)

But in 2024, the UK decided to do away with the system. No more special tax breaks.

And now, two years later, Bloomberg has found that some of the UK's wealthiest are leaving.

Benjamin Stupples (0:51)

Tax isn't the only driver, but I would say it's the final nail in the coffin that made a lot of money in the last decade. You know what? Let's go live in Monaco. Let's go live in Switzerland. Let's go live in Milan.

Sarah Holder (0:59)

Ben Stupples covers the ultra wealthy for Bloomberg. And he's used the Bloomberg Billionaires Index to identify the biggest billionaires who are cutting or loosening ties with the UK, where they're going and how much money they're taking with them.

Benjamin Stupples (1:14)

Every single shade, every color of billionaire wealth you can imagine is captured in that list. And that's what's so interesting. We've basically got this continued train of tax changes that's making the top billionaire elite often think about is it best to be living here or not.

Sarah Holder (1:33)

I'm Sarah Holder and this is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, how could billionaire flight actually impact the UK's economy? And what does it mean for efforts around the world to attract wealth and tax it?

Ben, you used data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index to assess how wealthy UK residents have been reacting to recent tax changes in the UK. One of the big changes was an end to a system that left the overseas wealth of so-called non-domiciled residents, or non-doms, largely untaxed. Top level, what did you find about the impact of that shift?

Benjamin Stupples (2:17)

Top level, we found a significant amount of wealth and ultra-high net worth individuals curbing their ties to the UK.

More than a dozen in total over the past two years, as these tax changes, as you say, have been coming in. They represent collective wealth of $160 billion. It's hard to put those numbers into context. What we found that might help our listeners here understand the size and scope of that is, out of the UK billionaires who are still on the index and still call the UK home, that $160 billion is bigger than that total.

Sarah Holder (2:51)

You didn't just track how many billionaires were leaving, how much they were worth, but you actually looked at who these ultra-wealthy individuals are. Who were these people that are leaving the UK?

Benjamin Stupples (3:03)

We're talking dynastic wealth. We're talking fortunes from pharmaceuticals, from tech, from industrials. We're talking individuals from India, Switzerland, and we're talking British individuals as well. The latest addition to that list is a UK hedge fund founder known as Chris Rockos. That's a significant name because only a few months ago, he was donating almost 200 million pounds to one of our top universities that we have here. So the fact that homegrown talent is now joining billionaires who came from, let's say, Switzerland or India, these are real case examples. They were among the first waves to go.

Now, the pendulum is shifting to potentially more homegrown billionaires.

Sarah Holder (3:43)

And why are they leaving?

Benjamin Stupples (3:44)

If I'm a billionaire tax advisor, the first thing I would tell you is billionaires don't just move because of tax. And that by and large is true. Tax was a major factor here. There were other things as well. We've had a few different political leaders chop and change of Brexit. I think that's phase one. Folks were left a little bit unstable here. And actually, to go back to the original question, why is this happening? Labour came in in 2024 and expanded the reforms to expose a non-dominant London, their overseas wealth to the UK's inheritance tax, which is as high as 40 percent. That's one of the highest in developed nations. And we're not like in the US, you've got a decent inheritance tax rate, but quite high, but only kicks in at a certain level where you're really among the ultra wealthy elite. Ours kicks in from about a million pounds between a married couple. So that means any billionaire, or ultra net worth, was suddenly exposed almost overnight to a 40 percent rate on something that had nothing to do with the UK.