Indian-origin steel magnate Lakshmi N Mittal, until now based in Britain and a regular on the country’s richest billionaires tally, has decided to quit the UK as the Labour Party-led government’s feared tax shake-up for the super-rich nears, according to a UK media report on Sunday.
Photograph: B Mathur/Reuters
Rajasthan-born Mittal is a resident in Switzerland for tax and will now spend much of his future in Dubai, according to the The Sunday Times.
The founder of ArcelorMittal steelworks is worth an estimated 15.4 billion pounds as per the 2025 ‘Sunday Times Rich List’, which ranked him the UK’s eighth richest man.
Now, the newspaper references sources close to the 75-year-old industrialist to claim he has become the latest billionaire to leave the UK ahead of a much-anticipated Budget by Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Wednesday.
Mittal already has a mansion in Dubai and has now bought “tracts of an intriguing development on the nearby Naďa Island” in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the newspaper claims.
The news of Mittal’s exit comes ahead of expected tax hikes on the wealthy as Reeves tries to address a 20 billion pounds hole in the UK’s finances.
In her first Budget tabled last year after Labour’s general election win, there were increases to capital gains tax, a reduction of the tax relief for entrepreneurs selling their ventures and new taxes on the way family companies are passed down to future generations.
Rumours of further levies in her second Budget as Chancellor next week, including a possible 20 per cent exit tax on those leaving the UK, have caused much unease among the wealthy.
“It wasn’t the tax on income (or capital gains) that was the issue,” one adviser familiar with the Mittals’ move is quoted by The Sunday Times as saying.
“The issue was inheritance tax. Many wealthy people from overseas cannot understand why all of their assets, wherever they are in the world, should be subject to inheritance tax imposed by the UK Treasury.
“People in this situation feel they have little choice but to leave and are either sad or angry to be doing so,” the adviser said.
While death duties are levied at up to 40 per cent in the UK, there is no inheritance tax in Dubai and in Switzerland.
Reports of Mittal’s relocation from the UK follow other entrepreneurs, including India-born tech entrepreneur and investor Herman Narula.
The 37-year-old, who has lived and grown up in England since the age of two, recently revealed his plans to shift to Dubai.
“It’s completely insane. I’m being told I’d have to pay a tax if I leave even if I haven’t sold the shares,” Narula, who founded AI-focussed Improbable, told the newspaper.
Even as it emerged that the government had scrapped plans for a so-called exit tax, for entrepreneurs like Narula it wasn’t enough to change their plans.
“I’m still leaving. The thing is, they’re clearly thinking about it, right? What if they change their mind? What stops them doing it in the next Budget,” he questioned.
The idea of an exit tax appears to have been prompted by the departure of Nik Storonsky, co-founder of the London-based financial services group Revolut, for the UAE.
His exit means he will avoid a potential capital gains tax liability of about 3 billion pounds were he to sell his shares in the hugely successful company.
Ultimately, a series of flip-flops by the UK’s Treasury Department in the days and weeks ahead of Wednesday’s Budget, or Autumn Statement as it is known, is said to have severely undermined the government’s assurances of making the UK a stable and predictable place to invest in businesses.
