BRITAIN'S richest man who owns the huge petrochemical site at Grangemouth is understood to be leaving the country to live in low-tax Monaco.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the 65-year-old boss of Ineos who was knighted this summer, has not revealed the reason for his move, but already owns a mansion on the French Riviera.
The high-profile Brexit supporter who was named as the UK’s wealthiest individual in the 2018 Sunday Times Rich List, with a fortune of £21.1 billion.
Mr Ratcliffe has not responded to requests for comment, and a spokeswoman for Ineos declined to comment on his decision describing it as a “personal matter”.
Ineos did say it was “committed” to its business base in the UK and planned to keep its headquarters in London “for the foreseeable future”.
The petrochemicals engineer, who founded Ineos, the huge privately owned chemicals group, in 1998, tried and failed to get Scotland’s fracking ban overturned using the courts, and he had previously been heard complaining about the tax and business environment in the UK.
Two other Ineos executives Andy Currie, a director, and John Reece, finance director, are expected to move to Monaco too, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Mr Ratcliffe’s exit comes after Nigel Lawson, the former Chancellor and long-term Brexiteer, applied for permanent residency in France.
In the run-up to the Brexit referendum, Ratcliffe provided a boost for the Leave campaign when he said Britain would thrive outside the EU.
He recently said that he looks forward to Britain throwing off the shackles of Brussels when we finally quit the EU.
He said: "The Brits are perfectly capable of managing the Brits and don't need Brussels telling them how to manage things.
"I just don't believe in the concept of a United States of Europe. It's not viable."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel