IN Great Britain 2015,  the best way to get rich is to “open a shop, gamble, get married to or divorce a gazillionaire, or move to Liverpool — ideally all four”. 

That’s according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List which reveals that outside London (which has 80) Liverpool has more billionaires than any other British city.

The stack-em-high-and-flog-em-cheap approach has once again paid hefty dividends for three of the five billionaires in the list whose businesses are Liverpool based.

Home Bargains' Tom Morris and family are now worth £2.25bn, up £200m on last year. Morris, 61, founded Home & Bargain 40 years ago with a shop in Prescot Road, Old Swan. It now has more than 300 branches and in 2013-14 it recorded profits of £124.7m.

Meanwhile brothers Simon, Bobby and Robin Arora rise 10 places, thanks to the success of their discount stores, B&M Bargains. They are worth a cool £1.75bn, up £350m - the biggest year-on gain after the business was floated on the stock market last year. Aged just 30, Robin Arora tops the Young Rich List.

John Hargreaves and family just scrape into Billionaire's Row with their wealth of £1,000m. A former Liverpool market trader, Hargreaves, 71, built the Matalan discount clothing chain. His daughter, Maxine Hargreaves-Adams, dabbles in the higher end of fashion, saving Fenn Wright Manson and clothing label Nicole Farhi. Father and daughter live in Monaco whiiekl Hargreaves' son, Jason, is Matalan's chief executive.

The remaining two Liverpool billionaires are Lord Grantchester and the Moores family who owe their £1bn fortune to their former involvement in Littlewoods retail and football pools.

And although based in London, the continuing (£6.5bn) wealth of the 80-year old Barclay twins, Sir David and Sir Frederick, nowadays depends on Liverpool. Their Shop Direct online retailer, which includes Littlewoods, Very, and their Yodel delivery operation, are headquartered in Speke.

Elsewhere in the North West, The Duke of Westminster, whose Grosvenor company owns Liverpool ONE, is the richest person in the region.

Ding DongDing Dong: John Whittaker of Peel Holdings

The Grosvenor Estate is based at the family seat, Eaton Hall, near Chester, but derives most of its value from its 300 acres in west London, centred on Belgravia and Mayfair - quite probably where some of London's 80 billionaires are sitting on empty properties.

Grosvenor reported profits of £507m in 2013 on its net assets of £3.45bn. The 63-year-old Duke’s overall wealth rises £60m this year to stand at £8.56bn, putting him among the 10 richest nationally.

Peel Holdings supremo John Whittaker, 73, is the runner up to the Duke in the North West, seeing a £70m gain in his family’s fortune. In Liverpool the firm owns John Lennon Airport and the Port of Liverpool including Liverpool2, the £300m deep water container port due to open this year - a joint venture between Peel and Deutsche Bank. Then there's the Trafford Centre, Media City, Pinewood Studios etc.

A new entry to the region’s exclusive club of billionaires are brothers Fred and Peter Done, the men behind the Betfred bookmaking chain. Fred, 72 and Peter, 68, started out with a single betting shop in Salford in 1967. Now they are worth £1bn - proving that gambling is not always a mug's game.

Regional rank

2015

Regional rank

2014

Name

2015 wealth

Wealth increase/

decrease

National rank

1

1

The Duke of Westminster

£8,560m

Up £60m

9

2

2

John Whittaker and family

£2,370m

Up £70m

43

3

3

Tom Morris and family

£2,250m

Up £200m

46

4

4

Simon, Bobby and Robin Arora

£1,750m

Up £350m

52=

5

5

Lord Grantchester and the Moores family

£1,200m

No change

85=

6=

8

Fred and Peter Done

£1,000m

Up £50m

108=

6=

7

John Hargreaves and family

£1,000m

No change

108=

8

6

The Sheppard family

£840m

Down £200m

136

9

14

Philip Day

£750m

Up £150m

145=

10=

9

Peter Jones and family

£730m

Up £13m

154=

10=

10

Sir Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell

£730m

Up £20m

154=

12

13

Michael Oliver and family

£724m

Up £116m

157

13

12

Trevor Hemmings

£675m

Up £50m

166=

14

19

Henry Moser and family

£600m

Up £250m

186=

15

11

Lord Alliance and family

£532m

Down £118m

205

16

16

The Warburton family

£530m

Up £30m

206=

17

15

The Walker family

£520m

No change

209=

18

18

Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones

£486m

Up £81m

227

19

20

Michael Oglesby and family

£410m

Up £85m

261

20

24

Sir Michael Bibby and family

£400m

Up £136m

262=