Grosvenor, the seventh Duke of Westminster, controls Grosvenor Group, a British real estate company. The London-based business owns 300 acres in the Belgravia and Mayfair neighborhoods, and controlled assets valued at 11.5 billion pounds ($14.5 billion) on Dec. 31, 2022. He inherited land his family has owned since 1677.
The majority of the Duke of Westminster's wealth is derived from his family's UK real estate holdings. The properties, which are held through various trusts, include about 200 acres of land in London's Belgravia neighborhood. The value of this asset is based on 2022 real estate values in prime central London, according to data from real estate broker Knight Frank.
The valuation of Grosvenor Group, the family's property development, investment and fund management unit, is based on the company's published net asset value as of Dec. 31, 2022 from its annual report. The dollar value used in this analysis reflects the exchange rate on Dec. 18, 2023.
He's credited with the entire fortune because the Grosvenor Estate is subject to a 1933 Act of Parliament, the Grosvenor Estate Act, which effectively restricts inheritance to the male line, according to UK legal professionals.
The family owns five rural estates in England, Wales, Scotland and Spain, covering more than 150,000 acres. The value of these properties is based on average prevailing land values for high-quality rural property and farmland in those specific regions, using UK land value data from Knight Frank for 2022.
Through Grosvenor Food & Agtech, the family also owns stakes in Realty Insurances, a dairy farm and the UK's largest bull stud operation. The valuation for these assets is based on the net asset value reported in the holding company's financial statements for the year ended December 2022 and adjusted to reflect the exchange rate on Dec. 18, 2023.
The value of the family's cash investments is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes and market performance. The Grosvenor family has been buying art for centuries. The exact content of the collection is difficult to verify and its value isn't included because of the lack of available information about it.
Hugh Richard Louis Grosvenor, known as the Duke of Westminster, was born in 1991 to Natalia Ayesha Phillips, a descendant of the Russian author Alexander Pushkin, and Gerald Grosvenor, the late 6th Duke of Westminster. He studied countryside management at Newcastle University before working in his family's real estate business. He's now an accounts manager at bio-bean, a London-based recycling firm, according to the company's website.
He became the seventh Duke of Westminster when his father died at his Abbeystead Estate in north England in August 2016.
As Duke, he's chairman of the trustees of the Grosvenor Estate, the portfolio of properties and businesses that's been in his family for centuries, originating with the 500 acres of London land Sir Thomas Grosvenor came into when he married heiress Mary Davies in 1677. Through multiple generations, the family's assets have grown to include prime London commercial property, five rural estates in England, Scotland, Wales and Spain, an insurance company, a hotel and an international property development, investment and fund management business, Grosvenor Group.
Grosvenor has three sisters, Tamara, Edwina and Viola.