As heiress to a billion-dollar empire and wife of Britain’s new prime minister, Akshata Murty may seem like a privileged little preppy who’s never had to work for her life or worry about the rising energy bills that the “winter catastrophe” is bringing to this country. end of the year.
Well, that may all be true, but the golden cradle that Rishi Sunak’s wife grew up in was a little different than what is expected of princesses, whether they are Indian or not. After her birth in 1980, her young parents had to decide between their daughter or their careers, and the choice was the latter.
“Two months after his birth in Hubli [cidade da Índia], we took her with us to Mumbai, but we quickly discovered that it would be very difficult to raise a baby and succeed in our careers at the same time. We decided that you would spend your early years with your grandparents,” wrote Nagavara Narayana Murthy, father of Akshata, in a book of letters from eminent Indian fathers to their daughters.
It may have been a good choice, as the following year Nagavara founded Infosys, a technology company that is now worth more than $100 billion. Four decades later, Akshata Murty (whose last name does not carry the “h” of her father) owns about 0.9% of the firm, equivalent to $900 million. As a profit on her part of Infosys, she receives £1 million (R$ 5.72 million) a month, which caused controversy at the beginning of the year.
Despite residing in London with her husband, Akshata officially declared herself as “not domiciled” in the UK, a status that frees some foreigners from paying income taxes if they intend to return to their home countries. For this, the foreigner must pay the British government an annual fee of £30,000 (R$ 171,000), which the British prime minister’s now wife was not doing.
So, according to the BBC, Akshata avoided paying £2.1m (£12m), while the Guardian estimated £20m in debt over the last seven and a half years.
The fact that her husband raised taxes for the working class when he was finance secretary to Boris Johnson made the matter a scandal. Sunak gave a basic kick: “Smearing my wife’s name to get at me is horrible.” But what ended the conversation was that Akshata said that she would willingly pay the “overdue” amounts, even if there was officially no debt.
Another controversy involving the current first lady this year appeared when it was revealed that Infosys, contrary to what the company had disclosed, continued to operate in Russia during the Ukrainian War. After the revelation, the company reportedly closed its Moscow office.
In April, the Sunday Times newspaper published its traditional annual list of the rich and placed the couple Akshata and Sunak in 222nd place among the richest in the United Kingdom. His fortune is valued at £730 million, more than double that of King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla, whose family assets, other than those of the monarchy, amount to £350 million.
To get there, the girl underwent a strict upbringing. The paternal grandparents who raised her were middle-class, and Akshata went through her childhood “without birthday parties or money in her pocket,” as she put it.
Later, when he joined his parents in Mumbai, his mother took the reins. Also an engineer and computer scientist — now a philanthropist for the Indian health system — Sudha Murthy decided that her daughter would not watch TV at home. “That way there would be time to study, read, talk and meet friends.”
Poor rich girl. Every night after dinner, she and her brother could only study while their parents read history, literature, physics, or engineering books. Even after she got rich, the family chose not to send her to school by private car, and Akshata kept going by tuc-tuc, a motorized tricycle used as a taxi in India.
Akshata finished her regular studies in California, where she majored in economics and French. Then she took a fashion course, worked at Unilever, and applied for an MBA at Stanford. There she met Sunak.
They married in a two-day Indian ceremony in 2009, after four years of dating, and have two daughters. In the same year, she founded a fashion company, Akshata Designs, which closed its doors after three years. She now owns stakes in several businesses in the UK and India, notably in two Jamie Oliver’s franchise restaurants, and is the director of a chain of fitness centers.
Both she and the prime minister are gymnastics fanatics. So much so that they are renovating one of their houses, in a picturesque village in the north of England, to install a complete gym.
The £2 million home renovation is estimated at £250,000. They also have an apartment in London, used by their families when they come from India, and a penthouse on the beach in Santa Monica, California, worth £5.5 million. But the main house, before they moved to 10 Downing Street, where the British prime minister always lives, was a residence in upscale Kensington.
The house is worth £7 million but when they bought it last decade it was worth £4.5 million. A 65% appreciation — just one example of how this couple knows how to do good business.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
