King George VI was apparently the first person to refer to the royal family as “the Firm”. It’s not hard to see why the nickname has stuck. The monarchy and its institutions can resemble a vast wealthy corporation. Tot up the value of its buildings, land, mineral rights, art and other treasures and you arrive at a number north of £20 billion, a figure exceeding the stock market value of Tesco, currently £17 billion.
This has been a golden age for the fortunes of the world’s richest people — and the royals are no exception.
Over the past decade, their asset wealth has grown more rapidly than at any point since the first pieces of their estates were acquired by Edward the Confessor almost 1,000