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Gopichand Hinduja, the billionaire head of Britain’s richest family, has died aged 85.Hinduja died on Tuesday in London after a long illness, a spokesperson said.The low-profile Hinduja family topped the Sunday Times Rich List this year with a collective net worth of £35.3bn, thanks to their sprawling business interests across banking, oil, real estate and entertainment.Gopichand Hinduja, nicknamed “GP”, co-chaired the family business with his older brother Srichand, who died in 2023.The brothers moved to London from India in the 1970s, where they continued to build the Hinduja Group. It now employs more than 150,000 people worldwide.The family empire expanded via a series of big acquisitions including the 1987 purchase of the Ashok Leyland group, which included parts of the defunct British automotive business British Leyland. The group also bought Gulf Oil from the US oil company Chevron in the 1980s.Gopichand Hinduja was embroiled in controversy in 2001 when it came to light that he had written to Peter Mandelson, a government minister at the time, about obtaining a UK passport for his brother Prakash.The brothers also donated £1m through their charitable foundation to the Millennium Dome project in London, which Mandelson was then overseeing.The brothers’ late father, Parmanand, began trading carpets, tea and spices in 1914, in a part of what was then British India but is now Pakistan. He later took the business to Iran.The family’s London home is an 18th-century mansion on Carlton House Terrace, overlooking St James’s Park and close to Buckingham Palace. Their property portfolio also includes the historic Old War Office (OWO) building in Whitehall, which they have turned into a luxury development.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe OWO development, in which one four-bedroom flat sold for more than £40m, should under planning rules contain 8,000 sq metres of affordable housing – enough for 98 flats.However, Westminster city council agreed to allow the Hinduja family to develop the building with no affordable housing after their agents claimed that it would “not be economically feasible” to do so.Hinduja is survived by his wife, Sunita, and their two sons Sanjay and Dheeraj, and their daughter, Rita.
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