The Queen Of England Is Worth Around 300 Million Pounds

Author David McClure has pored over the royal finances to calculate the Queen’s true worth for Royal Legacy, the first full-length book on the regal balance sheet for 20 years.

He puts the figure at around £300million, less than the £330million attributed to Her Majesty by last year’s Rich List.

Ex-Reuters journalist McClure said: “To be fair, there is an element of guesswork in all lists of the mega-rich since without access to their bank accounts or tax returns valuers can do no more than speculate about the exact size of many hidden assets.

"But I think it is fair to say that the Queen is not as wealthy as is often made out and could be viewed as asset rich and cash poor.”

The Queen’s landed property is easiest to put a price tag on.

Balmoral and Sandringham, the only royal residences the 88-year-old monarch owns privately, have been valued at more than £60million.

However, some of her most valuable possessions are kept under wraps, or rather protective sheets.

She inherited the Royal Philatelic Collection, the world’s most comprehensive collection of postage stamps of Britain and the Commonwealth

Many of the most prized pieces were assembled by her father, George V.

With just one set of penny blacks valued at £4million, the Queen’s total collection must be worth £10million although some estimates put the figure at £100million.

The Queen also owns a valuable art collection worth many millions.

The Crown Jewels and the Royal Collection are inalienable state treasures and do not figure in her private wealth.

She inherited the Queen Mother’s collection of paintings and jewellery with an estimated value of £60million.

The Queen is also thought to own shares in blue chip British companies rumoured to be worth as much as £105million.

The income the Queen derives from the 18,458 acres of the Duchy of Lancaster has also been on the rise.

The jewel in the crown is the Savoy Estate, two acres of prime real estate in London between the Savoy Hotel and Somerset House.

Commercial rents have risen from £3.75million in 1992 to £13.6million in 2014.

For all her renowned thriftiness, the Queen harbours one indulgence... horses.

In 2001, her 30 racehorses and 26 broodmares were valued at £3.6million although by 2011 she reduced her stable to about 25 horses.

However, with overheads as high as Becher’s Brook, it is a moot point whether her equine venture has ever made a profit.

Plebgate Payout

The police officer at the centre of the "plebgate" row has accepted £80,000 in damages from Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell.

A judge ruled last year the MP probably had called PC Toby Rowland, an officer on duty at Downing Street's gates, a "pleb".

Mr Mitchell accepted using bad language but said he had not used that word.

The ex-chief whip has already paid £300,000 in legal costs to the Sun newspaper and the Police Federation.

He lost a high-profile action against News Group Newspapers, publishers of the Sun in November.

A judge said he had reached the "firm conclusion" that Mr Mitchell had used the "politically-toxic" word "pleb" in September 2012 when he was not allowed to cycle through the main Downing Street vehicle gates.

Dirty Money

in today's London independent newspaper:

"Some 36,342 properties in London have been bought through hidden companies in offshore havens and while a majority of those will have been kept secret for legitimate privacy purposes, vast numbers are thought to have been bought anonymously to hide stolen money,"

Criminals and corrupt officials from foreign countries were buying high-cost housing via a web of offshore companies as a way to hide illicit cash, it explains.

Det Ch Insp Jon Benton of the Metropolitan Police's Proceeds of Corruption Unit tells the paper, "In nearly all the grand corruption cases we investigate, we find - what we suspect is - proceeds of corruption being used to purchase high-value properties."

The money used to purchase these properties, he points out, is often stolen "from the world's poorest people".

The Worlds Wealthiest People Under 40 Years Old

1. Mark Zuckerberg, 30 - Facebook ($33.4bn)

2. Dustin Moskovitz, 30 - Facebook ($7.9bn) 

3. Elizabeth Holmes, 31 - blood-testing ($4.5bn) 

4. Tom Persson, 30 - H&M ($3bn)

5. Julio Mario Santo Domingo, III, 29 - beer ($2.2bn) 

6. Tatiana Casiraghi, 31 - beer ($2.2bn)  

7. Nathan Blecharczyk, 31 - Airbnb ($1.9bn) 

8. Anton Kathrein Jr, 30 - antennas ($1.7bn) 

9. Evan Spiegel, 24 - Snapchat ($1.5bn)

10. Bobby Murphy, 25 - Snapchat ($1.5bn)