Private Equity Billionaire Mulls Joining U.K.'s Growing Wealth Exodus
CVC is a private equity giant with $200 billion in assets under management.
Rolly van Rappard, the cofounder of CVC Capital Partners, is reportedly considering a move from London to a more tax-friendly jurisdiction.
The billionaire is said to be thinking about moving to Milan, although a final decision has not been reached, according to a report by Private Equity News, which cited people familiar with the matter. A representative from CVC declined to comment on the story.
CVC is a private equity giant with $200 billion in assets under management. The firm's investments include Petco, Swiss watchmaker Breitling and Spanish soccer league La Liga.
Forbes estimates that Van Rappard is worth $1.5 billion based largely on his stake in CVC, where he continues to serve as the firm's non-executive chair.
Van Rappard's potential departure underscores earlier concerns that the U.K. could see an exodus of wealthy individuals after the Labour government adopted a series of reforms that increases taxes on capital gains and inheritances, while ending a preferential regime for non-domiciled residents.
Last month, the billionaire brothers Ian and Richard Livingstone switched their residency to Monaco after previously indicating the U.K. on their filings to the company registry. The move, which was first reported by Bloomberg, appeared on the filings between late March and early April, just prior to the government's tax hikes taking effect.
The brothers' real estate firm London & Regional declined to comment. They each have a net worth of $5.2 billion, according to Forbes estimates. Their company owns properties throughout London and operates hotels in Los Angeles., Las Vegas and Miami. Forbes estimates that they're each worth $5.2 billion.
Another billionaire who recently left the U.K. was Nassef Sawiris. The scion of Egypt's wealthiest family has an immense fortune that Forbes values at $9.3 billion, which includes co-ownership of Aston Villa Football Club.
Sawiris also changed his residency before the tax changes came into effect. He told the Financial Times in mid-April that he relocated to Abu Dhabi and Italy because the economy had been mismanaged for so long.
'You can't blame Labour,' Sawiris said. 'This was all in the making for 10 years of incompetence by the most left-leaning Conservative Party in history.'
The Conservative Party had earlier promised to make changes to the preferential tax regime for non-domiciled taxpayers, or 'non-doms,' who could avoid U.K. taxes on their overseas earnings for as long as 15 years.
But it was the Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves who went even further by scrapping the centuries-old tax privileges for non-doms in her October budget.
And Reeves didn't stop there. In her efforts to plug what the Labour government said was a £22 billion ($28 billion) black hole in public finances inherited from the Tories, she also increased the tax on capital gains and reduced the exemptions from the country's inheritance tax—all of which target the wealth community.
A government spokesman described the tax system as 'fair and progressive' and 'it keeps the U.K. an attractive place to live while supporting the public investment needed to drive growth.' And scrapping the non-dom regime also makes it 'simpler and more attractive.'
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has estimated that the changes to the regime will raise £33.8 billion over the next five years. But a report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) came up with another estimate that says the reforms could lead to billions in losses from the government's tax revenues.
The think tank's researchers said that if a quarter of the UK's non-doms leave the country, the net gain to the Treasury would be zero. And as the emigration rate goes up, the CEBR's report says the Treasury would incur higher losses.
If half the number of the taxpayers affected by the tax change leave the country by 2030, the government's revenues would drop by £12.2 billion, according to the think tank.
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