Brexit Backer's Fortune Surges by $900 Million
Brexit Backer’s Fortune Surges on Building Boom as U.K. Wavers
(Bloomberg) --
Money keeps coming in for a rich backer of the U.K.’s effort to get out of the European Union.
The fortune of Anthony Bamford, chairman of excavator-maker JCB, surged almost $900 million to $4.3 billion after the world’s largest closely held construction-equipment maker filed its 2018 results this week. Revenue for the Rochester, England-based business rose 22% from a year earlier to a record high 4.1 billion pounds ($5.1 billion). It also paid a 75 million-pound dividend to the Bamford family, the biggest in five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Bamford, 73, joins Jim Ratcliffe and Peter Hargreaves among the ranks of billionaire Brexiteers. His fortune has surged as anxiety mounts over the U.K.’s departure from the EU, spurred by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “do or die” threat of taking the nation out of the trading bloc without a deal next month.
Bamford declined to comment through a spokesman. He and JCB were among Johnson’s biggest donors in the run up to his becoming Conservative Party leader in July, giving more than $100,000 this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Other backers included Mayfair private members’ club owner Robin Birley, India-born billionaire Lakshmi Mittal and Peter Cruddas, founder of London-based spread-betting company CMC Markets, filings show.
In June 2016, Bamford wrote to JCB’s U.K. staff and criticized the EU’s “unaccountable" leaders before informing employees he would vote to leave in the country’s referendum later that month. He wrote in a letter last year to a British newspaper that the U.K. “has nothing to fear” from a no-deal Brexit. The government has since published documents outlining potential chaos for businesses and consumers in a no-deal scenario.
Bamford was born the same day his father founded JCB and has been chairman of the company since 1975. His younger brother, Mark, 68, also controls a stake valued at more than $1 billion. Anthony is now the world’s 476th-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Stupples in London at bstupples@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill
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