A recent report sheds light on the family office activities of the UK's wealthiest man, James Dyson.

James Dyson, whose vacuum cleaner and technology business has made him a household name, has reportedly moved $2.4 billion of his fortune to his family office since 2020, Bloomberg has reported. 

A dividend of £400 million ($545 million) was paid last year by Dyson Holdings to Weybourne Holdings, a single-family office responsible for managing Dyson’s wealth. This was reported to be the largest annual cash payout, as noted by registry filings. Welbourne received another £200 million from the firm and £700 million through share capital transfers in January.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranks Dyson as the UK’s richest person, with a net worth of about $26 billion.

In addition to the transfers to the family office in 2020, Weybourne also received dividends and capital transfers worth £465 million in 2019 and £300 million in 2018. In 2019, Dyson Holdings announced that it would relocate its headquarters from Britain to Singapore to put more focus on the Southeast Asia region, the report said. 

The family office was incorporated in June 2019, according to the UK's Companies House. Separately, Weybourne Holdings Pte Ltd is the recently-established Singapore-based parent company of the family office in the UK. More than a year ago, the Singapore parent recruited James Pritchard as chief financial officer, formerly the CFO for Asia for UnionBancaire Privée, and a senior lawyer, Andrew Lim, a partner with Allen & Gledhill, a Singapore law firm, who is also on the board. 

In April it was reported that Dyson had moved his residency back to the UK from Singapore. 

Sir James was criticised after he announced that he would relocate his firm's global head office to Singapore in 2019. The move appeared odd to some given that Dyson had been a supporter of the UK exit from the European Union. 

This news service has been building its coverage of single-family offices, a hitherto hard-to-track sector given how founders are typically discreet about their dealings. This news service is exclusive media partner to Highworth Research, a UK-based database of SFOs. To register on the Highworth database for a trial, click here. This recent article sets out examples of what family offices own. To see more about the Highworth Research database, click on this WealthTalk video.