Mamut highest-ranking book trade figure on ST Rich List

30.04.12 | Charlotte Williams - The Bookseller

Alexander Mamut, the Blackwell and Pearson families, and Jamie and Jools Oliver are among the book trade names on the Sunday Times Rich List 2012.

Waterstones owner Alexander Mamut has become the highest ranking book trade name on the list, with the paper putting the Russian's fortune at £1.3bn, and ranking him in 53rd place. His fortune is £478m down on last year.
Viscount Cowdray and the Pearson family are in joint 164th place, with the newspaper ascribing a 3% (£195m) stake in the Pearson group, parent company to Penguin, to the family. Combined with an auction of family heirlooms in September which raised £7.9m, and the family's other assets, the family's wealth was estimated at £500m, down on £515m last year.
Toby Blackwell, 83, and his nephew Nigel, founders of the Blackwell bookshop chain, are in at number 393 with a fortune of £195m, the same amount as in 2011.

Authors making the list include Harry Potter author J K Rowling, whose fortune is up £30m on last year, at £560m. She takes 148th place on the list. The paper has added £230m to her fortune for "future income from the Potter brand, including her Pottermore website", and estimates her advance for her next book, The Casual Vacancy, at £3m. Her former agent Christopher Little's fortune is listed as £55m, though he does not make the top 1,000.
Jamie Oliver and his wife Jools land in joint 501st spot, with a fortune placed at £150m, up £44m on last year. This is attributed to sales of his cookbooks, with the next to come this autumn, as well as through his restaurant chains, television shows, and Jools Oliver's new deal with Mothercare to create childrenswear and accessories, and her pregnancy guide and story book.
Meanwhile, Lord Jeffery Archer takes 569th spot with a fortune of £130m from his books, including his latest, Only Time Will Tell, and assets including London flat and art, up £10m on last year. Poet and magazine publisher Felix Dennis is in at 164th, with a fortune estimated at £500m, staying level with last year.
Author Cecelia Ahern takes joint sixth spot on the Ireland Rich List, with a fortune of £8m (€10m).
The annual list is based on the newspaper's estimates of the minimum wealth of Britain's richest, with the valuations carried out at the beginning of the year.