Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal retained his crown as Britain's richest man for the consecutive eighth year.

Despite losing almost a quarter of his wealth over the past year following a fall in the share value of his Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steelmaker, Mittal retained the top spot with an asset worth 12.7 billion pounds, according to the annual Sunday Times Rich List.

Uzbek-born iron ore magnate Alisher Usmanov was placed on the second spot with an asset worth 12.3 billion.

Russian investor Roman Abramovich, who owns London football club Chelsea, held onto third place with a personal value of 9.5 billion pounds.

Indian Indian-origin industrialists Hinduja brothers - Srichand and Gopichand - were also named as the fourth richest people in England with a net worth of 8.6 billion pounds.

Interestingly, majority of people in the top list are of foreign origin. The richest British-born billionaire was the Duke of Wellington, who slid from fourth to seventh place even though his largely property-based fortune rose five percent to 7.35 billion pounds.

Britain's richest woman was former "Miss UK" beauty queen Kirsty Bertarelli, who shares a 7.4 billion pounds fortune with her Swiss-Italian entrepreneur husband Ernesto.

The Sunday Times Rich List shows Britain's wealthiest people saw their fortunes rise to record levels last year.

The combined wealth of Britain's 1,000 richest people swelled by almost five percent to more than 414 billion pounds, the highest recorded by the 24-year-old survey, it added.

Some 77 members of the 2012 rich list were billionaires, two more than the previous record in 2008.

The annual list is based on identifiable wealth, including land, property and other items such as art, racehorses and significant shares in publicly quoted companies.

(With inputs from Reuters)

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