Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris has said the London office of his investment firm, NNS Group, will be closed by the end of the month as he completes his exit from the country amid a larger billionaire flight brought by new, unfavorable tax laws.
Aston Villa co-owner Nassef Sawiris.
PA Images via Getty Images
NNS group has submitted final paperwork indicating its London entity will be closed by the end of April, one year after the firm first started the process of dissolving and Sawiris moved his personal residence from the U.K. to Italy and Abu Dhabi.
The company relocated its main office to Abu Dhabi in 2024, a few months before Sawiris resigned as a director from the London branch, to further the development and growth of its portfolio in the United Arab Emirates.
Sawiris is now a resident of Italy, which has one of most attractive tax policies in Europe for the ultra-wealthy, and billionaire-friendly Abu Dhabi after the United Kingdom abolished its non-domicile tax status, which allowed non-citizen residents to only pay British taxes on the money they earned in the country, instead of their global earnings.
While he's one of a handful of billionaires to have left the U.K. due to the end of the wealth-friendly tax policy, Sawiris’s exit is especially notable because of his longstanding ties to the country: he established his family office branch there a decade ago, purchased the Aston Villa Football Club in 2018 and that same year created a UK foundation in 2018 that has since distributed more than $60 million (£45 million) to charities around the country.
Sawiris is a descendant of Egypt's wealthiest family (his two brothers, Naquib and Samih, are also billionaires) with a net worth of roughly $9.3 billion, ranking him among the 375 richest people in the world. He has a 5% stake in New York-listed firm Madison Square Garden Sports, owner of the NBA Knicks and the NHL Rangers teams, and bought Aston Villa in partnership with Fortress Investment Group's Wes Edens. He runs one of the world's largest nitrogen fertilizer producers, is a major shareholder in Orascom Construction and has a nearly 6% stake in German sportswear giant Adidas.
Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal ($28.6 billion), who first moved his family to the UK in 1995, left last year and has since shifted his primary residence to Dubai and Switzerland. Shipping magnate John Fredrikse ($21.1 billion) last year listed his $337 million home in London after declaring “Britain has gone to Hell” and has since moved to Dubai. Investor Christian Angermayer ($1.2 billion) lived in the UK for a decade before leaving for Switzerland and slamming the change in tax law as a "huge mistake" and “potentially a bigger act of national self-harm than Brexit.”
According to residency firm Henley & Partners, the U.K. is losing wealthy residents faster than any other country. More than 16,000 millionaires left in 2025 and, between 2014 and 2024, the population of millionaires dropped by 9%. China, India, South Korea, Russia and Brazil are also losing wealthy residents at a comparable rate for a variety of reasons including tax law, political instability, war and the search for a higher quality of life. UAE, the United States, Italy, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia are gaining wealthy residents at the highest rates, respectfully.
Knight Frank’s annual wealth report on Thursday highlighted key markets experiencing unprecedented change in their luxury appeal, specifically noting Miami, Abu Dhabi, Mumbai and Brisbane, Australia. Other housing markets expected to outperform with the ultra rich this year include Rome's Via Veneto and Lake Como in Italy, the residential area of Silberküste along the western shore of Lake Zurich in Switzerland and two American destinations: New York’s Upper East Side and Pacific Palisades, California.
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