The UK’s Royal Family is world famous, with millions flocking to Britain every year to visit Buckingham Palace among other sites with close links to them.
But there’s another set of royals from a very tiny nation that has an impressive multi-billion pound empure.
Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein is the head of a Royal Family that has survived over one thousand years of war and royal scandal, and it has emerged with a fortune of £425 billion.
The small Alpine nation of just 39,000 inhabitants makes its money through managing the wealth of some of the world’s richest people and their Prince is now Europe’s richest royal, overtaking the wealth of King Charles.
The Royal Family’s private banking and asset-management firm LGT Group reported record assets on June 30 this year, a six percent increase since the end of 2022.
LGT Group has been operating for around a century, yet in the past decade it has more than doubled its assets under management and operating income, having suffered greatly during the 2008 financial crisis.
Prince Hans-Adam is the sole beneficiary of LGT Group and is also now the 215th richest person in the world, with a personal fortune of £7.52 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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Unlike monarchs such as King Charles, the Prince of Liechtenstein owns his family’s most valuable assets personally, making their family’s fortune the oldest on Bloomberg’s list.
LGT was first started in 1921 with just 10 employees, and it was bought ten years later by the royals during the Great Depression.
Prince Hans-Adam, who formerly trained at a bank in London, took over the company in the 1970s and was tasked by his father with reorganising the family empire after World War II and a series of mismanagements.
The Royal Family in Liechtenstein are still LGT’s biggest clients, however beyond the company the dynasty still own land and real estate, such as a castle overlooking the River Rhine.
Prince Hans-Adam was born in 1945 and grew up in Vaduz, the country’s capital, ascending to the throne in 1989, five years after becoming his father Prince Franz Joseph II’s regent.
He married his wife, German Countess Marie Kinsky of Wchinitz and Tettau, in 1967 and the couple have four children.
Hereditary Prince Alois is his father’s heir and has acted as his regent since 2004, and he and his wife Duchess Sophie of Bavaria also have four children – Prince Joseph Wenzel, Princess Marie-Caroline, Prince Georg and Prince Nikolaus.
Prince Hans-Adam’s second son, Prince Maximilian, is now CEO and President of LGT Group and has a son, Prince Alfons.
The Princely Couple’s youngest son Prince Constantin also has a family and has been CEO of the Prince of Liechtenstein Foundation since 2012, while their daughter Princess Tatjana lives quietly with her family in Austria.