5. Mark Pears
£1,500m
William Pears Family Holdings
2008: £1,500m (No change)
The Pears family pulled off a coup in January 2009 when it bought the Trillium outsourcing business for £750m from Land Securities. The price was around £250m less than LandSec had hoped to achieve. But the deal reflects the strength of cash-rich groups like the Pears in this difficult market.
The family empire was started by the grandfather and father of the Pears brothers, in 1952. They had assembled a Hampstead-based property portfolio that now embraces thousands of London homes, flats, and office blocks. The three young Pears were propelled to run the empire when their father, Clive, died in his early fifties.
Mark, 45, is managing director of the family's main company, William Pears Family Holdings, but there are at least 20 separate companies, which showed profits of more than £72m and net assets of nearly £778m in 2007-08.
The Pears family also owns fund management group Talisman and set up property outsourcing and services company Telereal with Trillium in 2001 to buy the BT portfolio. They took full ownership of Telereal in 2005.
The Pears also own properties such as the Coutts Bank building on the Strand and were founding investors of the Piccadilly eaterie The Wolseley, although they sold out a few years ago.
The Pears portfolio has been valued at £6bn. The Pears also collected dividends of £40m in recent years and nearly £82m in 1996. But in the current climate we stick with last year's £1,500m valuation, allowing for borrowings.