Who is the richest of them all?

STACKING 'em high and selling 'em cheap continues to pay divdends for the founders of Home Bargains and B&M. 

They jointly increased their wealth by over £1bn, according to the new Sunday Times Rich List, published today.

The list reveals the top 20 moneymakers in the North West with the Duke of Westminster, who owns Liverpool ONE, increasing his lead at the top by a whopping £700 million; dwarfing the rest of the NW list on £8.5 billion.

The 20 richest in the region are worth £24.86 billion collectively and constitute the greatest concentration of billionaires outside the capital, so no need for any of them to buy their Oxo cubes from Bootle Strand.

Rich man No fewer than seven families living or with their businesses based in the region have achieved billionaire status this year. Westminster’s wealth is centred on Mayfair and Belgravia in London, but his family seat is at Eaton Hall, in Cheshire, and he owns significant parts of Liverpool city centre. Assets in his Grosvenor Group property operation increased to nearly £3.5billion in 2012.

In second place, nothing much really changed for John Whittaker, head of Peel Holdings which owns the Port of Liverpool, John Lennon Airport and the Trafford centre.

The Whittaker family's £2.3 billion fortune stood firm, but snapping at Peel's heels are Home Bargain's Morris family on £2.05 billion.

Paul McCartney may not be making much in the way of new music any more, but he's making money. He and his American wife Nancy Shevell are worth £710 million, up £30 million on last year. 

Her £150m wealth comes from her father’s American trucking operation, while Macca continues to amass his fortune through an extensive touring schedule that last year featured 32 dates as part of his Out There tour. Income from the Beatles, who started out in Liverpool, continues to flow more than 50 years after they took the musical world by storm.

The list is based on identifiable wealth, including land, property, other assets such as art and racehorses, or significant shares in publicly quoted companies. It excludes bank accounts, to which the compilers have no access.