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Spotify and Beggars founders jump onto Sunday Times Rich List

By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 27 April 2012

The annual Sunday Times Rich List will be published this Sunday, and will show that, for the most part, the wealthiest people in music are pretty much as wealthy as they were this time last year. Paul McCartney jumps up two places to number three, but this is down to his new wife Nancy Shevell’s £150 million fortune being added to his own, which I reckon is cheating.

Most interesting are the two new entries in the top 50 richest music industry people. Beggars Group founder Martin Mills finds himself at joint 46th with Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason with an estimated fortune of £55 million. And nearly 40 years after he opened the original Beggars Banquet record shop in Earls Court, kickstarting a career spent discovering and promoting great music, that seems fair enough. His jump up the charts is aided by Adele, whose endlessly popular ’21’ album was released by the Beggars-owned XL Recordings.

A fresher face on the scene, and one much higher up, is Spotify founder Daniel Ek. He enters the chart at joint tenth, alongside Mick Jagger and the Beckhams, having accumulated an estimated wealth of £190 million. Who said streaming music doesn’t pay? Of course, that isn’t actually the money he has in the bank, it’s the value of his stake in Spotify, the company being valued at £1.2 billion in total, so basically it’s made up money. For all we know Ek doesn’t have two CDs to rub together.

Here, for you enjoyment/resentment (delete as applicable) are the top ten music millionaires in Britain and Ireland:

1 Clive Calder (£1,350m)
2 Cameron Mackintosh (£725m)
3 Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell (£665m)
4 Andrew Lloyd-Webber (£590m)
5 U2 (£514m)
6 Simon Fuller (£375m)
7 Simon Cowell (£225m)
8 Elton John (£220m)
9 Michael Flatley (£192m)
10= David and Victoria Beckham (£190m)
10= Daniel Ek (£190m)
10= Mick Jagger (£190m)