Rishi Sunak: Akshata Murty to pocket another £6.7 million in dividends, becoming the richest-ever PM’s wife

Rishi Sunak's wife Akshata Murtyis set to receive another £6.7 million after the company she partly owns has announced a 17.5 rupee (17p) dividend to shareholders following a year of rapid growth.

The businesswoman has already pocketed over £40 million in dividends since the start of 2020 which makes her one of the highest earners in the UK.

What is the source of Akshata Murty’s wealth?

Akshata Murty’s latest payout comes from Bangalore-based Infosys, a company her father Narayana Murty founded back in 1981. The over half a billion pounds worth corporation provides IT outsourcing services and has grown to have a market cap of £58 billion, giving Murty’s father a wealth of £3.9 billion, according to Forbes.

Infosys today said it delivered $18.2 billion in revenues in the year to the end of March 2023, up 15.4% on the previous year, with operating margins of 21.0%.

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Akshana Murty and Rishi Sunak, who married in 2009, also own a string of luxury properties worth an estimated £15 million, from a Pacific Ocean-facing penthouse apartment in celebrity enclave Santa Monica to a rambling Georgian manor house in North Yorkshire.

In London, they own two properties including a five-bedroom mews house in Kensington and a pied-à-terre apartment in South Kensington’s Old Brompton Road.

Non-dom status and criticism

Akshata Murty’s extreme wealth has come under the spotlight since her husband Rishi Sunak first ran to be the leader of the Conservative Party in July last year, and was earlier this week the subject of an attack ad run by the Labour Party.

The advert, which concentrates on her non-dom tax status, asks:

Do you think it’s right to raise taxes for working people when your family benefited from a tax loophole? Rishi Sunak does.

Akshata Murty renounced her non-dom status, which gave her preferential tax treatment on income earned outside the UK after it appeared to jeopardise her husband’s chances to become the party leader.

According to a study by the London School of Economics, the abolition of non-dom tax breaks would raise more than £3 billion in additional government revenues per year.

In his defence, Rishi Sunak said:

I think in our country, we judge people not by their bank account, we judge them by their character and their actions. And yes, I’m really fortunate to be in the situation I’m in now, but I wasn’t born like this.

Despite British PM's arguments, his family’s extreme wealth still sparks controversy, especially since Britain is currently being swept by the wave of strikes over the pay rise, with teachers and junior doctors having rejected the deals proposed by the Government and vowed to continue with industrial actions.

On the other side, millions of households in the country are affected by the cost of living crisis and are struggling to cover bills and catch up with ever-increasing prices.

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Sources used:

- Evening Standard: 'Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty lands £6.7 million Infosys payout'