The net worth of Top 200 collector, businessman and art patron Leonard Blavatnik has fallen by more than £3.5 billion ($470 billion) in the last year, according to the latest edition of the Sunday Times’s “Rich List.”
The annual ranking of the wealthiest people based in the UK showed Blavatnik’s net worth fell to £25.725 billion ($34.4 billion) last year, causing his ranking to fall one spot to #3. The Ukrainian businessman made his money from early investments in aluminum and energy companies as they were being privatized during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Blavatnik’s wealth also comes from the sale of his stake in a Russian oil company, TNK-BP, for $7 billion, as well as the purchase of Warner Music for $3.3 billion in 2011.
In 2017, Blavatnik donated £50 million to the Tate Modern for its new extension, which was renamed the Blavatnik Building. The patron also donated £10 million through his family foundation to the Courtauld Institute of Art in London for its galleries, educational and social spaces in 2020.
The Sunday Times’s annual ranking for 2025 included more than a dozen collectors from ARTnews‘s 2024 Top 200 Collectors list, including British industrial designer James Dyson (£20.8 billion, #4), Israeli businessman Idan Ofer (£20.1 billion, #5), Russian businessman and oligarch Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor (£7.7 billion, #24), British hedge fund manager Alan Howard (£2.5 billion, #71), and Bahrana-Emirati businessman Mohammed Mahdi al-Tajir (£1.6 billion, #103).
In addition to ranking #5, Ofer was noted as one of the top five individuals whose wealth rose the most in the last year, an increase of £5.161 billion.
The Sunday Times list also included Simon Reuben, the father of Top 200 collector Lisa Reuben; John Fredriksen, the father of Top 200 collectors Cecilie and Kathrine Fredriksen; Sri Prakash Lohia, the husband of Top 200 collector Aarti Lohia; Lakshmi Mittal and Family; musician Elton John; and former Christie’s stakeholder Joe Lewis.
In 2012, Mittal, a steel magnate, contributed £19.2 million (about $30 million) of the £22.7 million cost of the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower. The sculpture, designed by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond, rose 377 feet to an observation platform and at the time, became Britain’s tallest sculpture, and then became a slide in 2015. The Mittal family’s namesake South Asian Institute at Harvard University also offers artist fellowships, exhibitions, and conservation programs.
John previously appeared on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list but sold a large portion of his collection through several single-owner sales at Christie’s for $20.5 million last February.
Lewis previously appeared on the ARTnews Top 200 collectors list. Last year, he plead guilty to conspiracy and insider trading, resulting in a US judge ordering the Tavistock Group founder to pay a fine of $5 million and serve three years of probation.
The Times also noted the 2025 edition was “one of the toughest to compile due to Trump’s tariffs and the ensuing stock market turbulence” and “the biggest fall in the number of UK billionaires in the Rich List’s history. The entry level flatlines at £350 million—another indicator of a subdued year.”
Blavatnik has lost more than $2 billion this year, lowering his net worth to $37.2 billion, according to data from the Bloomberg Billionaire Index based on the close of trading in New York on May 15.
Federal Election Commission data also showed Blavatnik donated $293,588 to Republican candidates, parties and Super PACs for the 2024 election, including $79,700 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. By comparison, he donated $82,700 to Democratic candidates, parties, and Super PACs during the same period.
