FORMER South Bromsgrove High School Student and owner of Gymshark, Ben Francis, has been crowned the UK’s youngest billionaire according to a new survey.
The 31 year old founder of one of the most popular fitness clothing brands is worth £1.02 billion according to Forbes rich list making him the 2187th richest billionaire in the world.
City Index have compiled a list of the UK’s top ten youngest billionaires according to Forbes, with Ben Francis coming out a considerable eight years younger than the next youngest UK billionaire.
Francis co-founded Gymshark in 2012 with Lewis Morgan, whilst studying at Aston University together where they began screen-printing and selling fitness clothing in his parent’s garage in Solihull.
The company’s breakthrough came when Francis started sharing his fitness journey on social media platforms which later led to the US-based private equity firm General Atlantic investing in a 21 per cent stake of the business, boosting it’s valuation to over £1 billion.
It is estimated Ben Francis’ 70 per cent stake in Gymshark is now worth $1.2 billion, while the company averages sales of over $1 million a day on their US site alone.
The founder of Revolut, a bank and finance tech startup, Nikolay Storonsky, 39, comes second on the list with a net worth of £2.6 billion.
Michael Platt, 55, a British hedge funder manager and co founder of BlueCrest Capital Management has the highest net worth on the list with £12.6 billion making him the 110th richest billionaire.
According to City Index’s study, female billionaires in the UK are younger and richer, on average, than males.
The average age of female billionaires in the UK is 66.5 compared to 68 for males. Female billionaires in the UK have an average net worth of £4.24bn, which is £1.03bn more than the average net worth of males.
Denise Coates, 55, has the second highest net worth on the list at £6.2 billion.
Although she is the only female UK billionaire to make the top 10, ranking 294th on Forbes’ billionaire index.
Coates largely made her wealth as the founder of online gambling site Bet365, currently valued at $3.3 billion and one of the world’s largest online gambling companies.
Coates owns around half of the privately held Bet365, which facilitates more than $65 billion in bets per year.
