New Delhi: A latest report has revealed that Akshata Murthy, the Indian wife of British finance minister Rishi Sunak, and daughter of the founder of Infosys, NR Narayana Murthy, is richer than Queen Elizabeth.
Sunak, who was once projected as a future prime minister, has witnessed dwindling popularity because of soaring consumer prices amid recent reports that Murthy’s foreign earnings are shielded from British tax authorities.
The couple, who got married in 2009 in a relatively modest affair, knew each other from their education days at Stanford University in the United States. Akshata was pursuing MBA while the future chancellor of the exchequer was a Fulbright scholar already with a first-class Oxford degree.
The 42-year-old daughter of the Indian tech tycoon owns shares worth almost a billion dollars in Infosys, according to the company’s disclosure to the stock exchange, as per the AFP report. This makes her richer than Queen Elizabeth, whose personal wealth is about £350 million ($460 million), according to the 2021 Sunday Times Rich List, cited the AFP report.
The couple has at least four properties, including a £7 million ($9 million) five-bedroom house in upscale Kensington, London, and a flat in Santa Monica, California. Akshata remains the director of venture capital company Catamaran Ventures that the couple founded in 2013.
On the tax evasion, she said this week that she “is treated as non-domiciled for UK tax purposes”, meaning returns from her Infosys stake are only liable for taxation outside Britain.
Sunak told The Sun newspaper for Friday’s edition that “to smear my wife to get at me is awful”. He said “it would not be reasonable or fair to ask her to sever ties with her country because she happens to be married to me”.