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| Hans Rausing and family |
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| RESULTS 2005 |
Ranking |
Worth |
Industry |
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4 |
£4,950m |
Food packaging |
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| Writing a £198,000 cheque for the Tories last July would have been no problem for Rausing, 79. He is expected to write another for the forthcoming election. The Sussex-based Swede helped to develop the Tetra Pak (later Tetra Laval) company founded by his late father in 1944. It revolutionised the packaging of products such as milk and fruit juice. He moved to Britain in the early 1980s to escape Sweden's punitive tax regime and sold his 50% stake to his late brother, Gad, for about £4.4 billion in 1995. Since then he has invested heavily in new products such as Ecolean, a chalk-based environment-friendly packaging material. Although Ecolean is used by Marks & Spencer, the business made losses in the past two years and has laid off 30 staff. The family's various charitable trusts give away about £40m a year. Last year donations by the Marit and Hans Rausing Charitable Foundation included a £1.5m grant to a Swedish medical faculty to research treatment for brain tumours. Their London-based daughter Lisbet, 44, is vice-president of the conservation charity Fauna & Flora International, and helps to conserve the golden eagle at her 48,000-acre Scottish Highland estate. Her donations will soon reach £15m a year, while her sister Sigrid, 43, is giving grants worth £12.5m this year to promote lasting social change, with a particular focus on international women's rights. Hefty investments and donations have limited the growth of the Rausing fortune. Cautiously, we stick at last year's £4.95 billion. |
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| RESULTS 2004 |
Ranking |
3 |
Worth |
2004: £4,950m |
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