(London) Charles III, who will be crowned on May 6, is at the head of a considerable fortune, adding to his inheritance some of the assets he made grow as a prince.
After receiving his mother Elizabeth II’s inheritance, valued at 360 million pounds (616 million Canadian dollars), Charles III’s fortune will amount to 600 million pounds (more than 1 billion Canadian dollars), estimates THE Times.
According to a relative of the royal family quoted by the daily, the former Prince of Wales led an ambitious investment policy to replenish his coffers after divorcing Diana.
The separation cost him 17 million pounds in 1996, but Charles did not start from scratch and could count on the resources of the Duchy of Cornwall, from which he received the benefits of his mother’s accession to the throne in 1952 on the death of this last in 2022.
This heritage was set up in the XIVe century to give financial independence to the royal heir.
Concretely, the latter does not own the assets of this fund, but receives its profits until his accession to the throne.
For Charles, the duchy “brings together everything that excites him”, assured his wife Camilla, in a documentary by the ITV channel dating from 2019.
The future king toured the farms he rented to farmers and encouraged them to use sustainable farming methods.
In addition to 260 farms, the Duchy owns 52,450 hectares of land, and leases £345 million of commercial properties.
Ideal village
Charles even created a village, Poundbury, in the suburbs of Dorchester, where he applies his architectural preferences.
PHOTO ADRIAN DENNIS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
View over Poundbury
Under his leadership the Duchy has grown in size and in its latest annual report it has over £1 billion in assets, a record, with income paid to the heir standing at £23 million, an increase of more than 40% in 15 years.
This income is now paid to his heir William, but he had time to fill Charles’ account even before his royal inheritance.
Due to a centuries-old tradition confirmed in the 1990s to avoid dissolving the royal heritage, “he will not pay any inheritance tax”, London heritage lawyer Geoff Kertesz told AFP. .
Billionaire King?
The Queen’s will is not public, which is also specific to the sovereign.
But Balmoral Castle, where the royal family spends their summers, and Sandringham, are among the properties inherited by Charles, unlike Buckingham or Windsor, historic homes of the royal family, which belong to the state.
Another historical symbol of the British monarchy, the Crown Jewels are also the property of the nation, and are therefore excluded from assessments of the royal fortune, since they alone represent several billion pounds.
On the other hand, the State pays the sovereign a “sovereign grant”: an endowment for the sovereign of a quarter of the income generated by the “Crown Estate”, a vast fund made up of real estate assets such as wind farms at sea. The rest goes to the Treasury.
The royal endowment has reached £86.4m for 2021-22.
Finally, a third fund completes the royal fortune: the Duchy of Lancaster, controlled by the sovereign, and which brought in the queen 24 million pounds in 2022.
When it comes to assessing the total wealth of Crown funds, “I don’t think anyone knows what it represents,” acknowledges Mr. Kertesz.
In a series of articles titled The cost of the crownTHE Guardian tries to evaluate the royal fortune, in particular making the assumed choice to include the property of the Duchy of Lancaster, legally defined as controlled by the State but whose entire benefit goes to the sovereign.
The daily also includes luxury vehicles, technically owned by the state but used by the royal family.
There are also works of art, including a painting by Claude Monet, The blockbought for 2000 pounds by the Queen Mother, the mother of Elizabeth II, in the post-war period and now valued at 20 million pounds.
As a result, Charles’ fortune would then be 1.8 billion pounds (about 3 billion Canadian dollars).