3 (2) Viscount Portman and family £1.45bn (£1.45bn)
If you owned 110 acres of prime estate in London, a 3000-acre Hereford estate and 17,000 acres in Australia you might expect to be higher than third in The Birmingham Post Rich List.
But Viscount Portman and his family are not the sort of landlords who just sit back and watch the money roll in. They are constantly expanding and investing in their properties to protect their value in the long term.
The 49-year-old Viscount has made sure that the London properties on the Portman Estate maintain their high value. The estate may have been in the family for nearly 500 years but the properties have the very latest in facilities including broadband technology and wireless internet.
Last year Westminster Council approved plans for a major revamp of Old Quebec Street in W1. The street, which links the western end of Oxford Street to Seymour Street near Marble Arch, has been repaved, with new traffic restrictions and general smartening up of these smart addresses.
The Portman Estate has also spent nearly £17 million buying the leasehold of Garfield House in W1 as a long term investment. The retail and office building - of which it is already the freehold owner - will be converted to "something of quality" - according to an Estate spokesman - within 10 to 20 years.
Christopher Edward Berkeley Portman, the 10th Viscount Portman, comes from a family which is indeed something of quality. They have been landlords of the 110-acre Portman estate in central London since the 16th century. It was bought by Sir William Portman in 1532 to graze goats.
They are active landlords, and the family mantra is that one of the reasons why the great London estates - their's included - have prospered, is that "instead of being observers of their fate they have become participants in their future".
That costs money, but the rise in London property prices has enabled the Portmans to ensure the estate remains vibrant, cosmopolitan and popular.
The Portman property portfolio includes a 17,000-acre farm in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia as well as shares in commercial properties in New York and Florida. The family also has homes in Antigua and Sydney.
