Ian and Richard Livingstone: the brothers who built a $7.2bn fortune

As 20-somethings, Ian and Richard Livingstone began snapping up cheap London property. Their knack for spotting promising but underrated assets has served them well ever since.

Ian Livingstone with his wife Natalie © A Davidson/Shutterstock
Shrewd investor: Ian Livingstone with his wife Natalie
(Image credit: Ian Livingstone with his wife Natalie © A Davidson/Shutterstock)

Over the past 30 years, brothers Ian and Richard Livingstone have quietly amassed a multibillion-pound property portfolio spanning some of the finest hotels in the world. “But their shrewdest bet by far is a different kind of investment,” says The Daily Telegraph. The brothers’ stake in Evolution Gaming – a Swedish-based online gambling business that has surged during the pandemic – has delivered 5,000% returns since they became shareholders, jumping 200% in the last year alone. The brothers’ 8.6% stake is now worth almost $3bn, and Evolution has proved a crucial source of liquidity while many of the hotels in their London and Regional property empire have been closed.

This is the tech niche to be in

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.