Sunday Times Rich List: Ex-beauty queen Kirsty Bertarelli sees almost £2bn wiped from personal fortune

Kirsty Bertarelli - the former Miss UK from Staffordshire - has seen her family's wealth plummet by almost £2 billion.

The one-time model and her Italian husband Ernesto have seen £1.8 billion wiped off their personal fortune, according to the 30th annual Sunday Times Rich List - published this weekend.

The couple are still faring better than most though with their fortune now sitting at £9.65 billion, making them the wealthiest West Midlands entrant on the 2018 Rich List.

Born Kirsty Roper, the songwriter comes from the small town of Stone north of Stafford and co-wrote the All Saints single Black Coffee.

She is now the third richest woman in the UK.

The Bertarelli family sold its biotech business Serono for $13.3 billion in 2006, netting the family $8.6 billion.

The family fortune has been further strengthened by investing in the Swiss pharma businesses Santhera and Stallergenes Greer, although both have fallen significantly in value in the past year.

Mr Bertarelli has also diversified into other sectors, buying a cable-car site in the exclusive Swiss ski resort of Gstaad in 2015.

Both are generous donors to charity supporting neuroscience and biotechnology projects in Switzerland and around the world.

Second on the list of West Midlands entrants is the Coates family, owner of online betting portal Bet365 and Stoke City FC - relegated from the Premier League last weekend.

Peter Coates and his children Denise and John are said to be worth £5.75 billion, up by £754 million from the 2017 list.

Denise set up Bet365 in 2001 in a pre-fabricated building in a car park and in 2016-17 took home an annual salary of £200 million, which was the biggest received by a woman in the history of British business.

As a child, she spent her weekends working at her father's betting shops and went on to run the family bookmaker and expanded the chain to almost 50 outlets.

In 2000, having decided the future was online, she mortgaged the shops for a loan and brought the Bet365 domain name for $25,000 on eBay.

Bet365's name adorns Stoke City's shirts and the club plays in the Bet365 Stadium.

Other notable West Midlands names included in the list (see table below for top 20 countdown) include Coventry Airport's owner Sir Peter Rigby, Michael and Kenny Bruce, who founded online estate agency Purple Bricks, and Tony Murray who, at 98, is the oldest entrant in the 2018 Rich List.

The former RAF navigator, who served during the Second World War after France was occupied, runs heating and air-conditioning equipment hire company Andrew Sykes with his family.

Sunday Times Rich List compiler Robert Watts said: "The Midlands is the engine room of Britain's economy so it's no surprise to see tycoons like Lord Edmiston from the car industry and Lord Bamford from the manufacturing world feature prominently.

"Many of these entrepreneurs enjoyed a 'Brexit dividend' with the weaker pound making their products cheaper to exporters."

But over our 30 editions we've seen more and more diversity in how these entrepreneurs make their money and our Midlands Rich List epitomises that change, with vast fortunes now being made from mobile phones, online gambling and even selling chickens."