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| Lord Sainsbury and family |
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| RESULTS 2005 |
Ranking |
Worth |
Industry |
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17 |
£1,710m |
Supermarkets |
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| When the Sainsbury family's Gatsby Charitable Foundation sold a £130m stake in the J Sainsbury supermarket chain in February, the City saw it as a sign that the family was preparing to check out of the business. Certainly it has nothing to do with running the company today. Sainsbury, 64, who heads the family, spent 35 years in the business founded by his great- grandparents in 1869. Ennobled by Tony Blair, Sainsbury is an unpaid science minister, but despite his huge knowledge of genetically modified food, he cannot become involved in any government policy because of possible conflict of interest with his private investments — even though his stake in the business is held via blind trusts. Sainsbury has given £11.5m to Labour. Despite intense competition from the likes of Tesco and Asda and a series of management blunders, Sainsbury shares have perked up recently. The City hopes that a bidder may be flushed out by the decision of the Gatsby trust, one of the most consistently generous benefactors in the UK, to sell shares. The wider Sainsbury family's stake (excluding charitable stakes) is now worth £1,506m. Other assets and dividends (£350m before tax between 1999 and 2003) take the family to £1,710m overall. |
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| RESULTS 2004 |
Ranking |
16 |
Worth |
2004: £1,696m |
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