Simon Arora (born November 1969) is a British

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

businessman, and former CEO of the retail chain B&M.

Early life

Simon Arora was born in November 1969. He studied law at Cambridge University.

Career

Arora worked as an analyst for McKinsey, 3i and

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. In 1995, he went into business with his younger brother

Bobby Arora Bobby Arora (born January 1972) is a British billionaire businessman, trading director of the retail chain B&M. Early life Bobby was born to an Indian family in January 1972. His businessman father had immigrated to the UK from Delhi in the ...

, importing homewares from Asia and supplying them to UK retail chains, before buying B&M in 2004, which was then a struggling grocery chain based in Blackpool. In 2017, Simon and Bobby Arora cashed in £215m of shares and reduced their stake in B&M by a quarter, three years after taking it public. As of May 2019, the Arora brothers (Simon, Bobby and Robin) jointly have a net worth of £2.26 billion. Arora stepped down as CEO of B&M in September 2022 following 17 years in the role. He remains an executive director at the company.

Covid-19 rates relief

In March 2020, as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom The COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the United Kingdom, it has resulted in confir ...

Rishi Sunak Rishi Sunak (; born 12 May 1980) is a British politician who has served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party since October 2022. He previously held two Cabinet of ...

, then

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, gave

business rate Rates are a tax on property in the United Kingdom used to fund local government. Business rates are collected throughout the United Kingdom. Domestic rates are collected in Northern Ireland and were collected in England and Wales before 1990 and i ...

s relief and

furlough A furlough (; from nl, verlof, "leave of absence") is a temporary leave of employees due to special needs of a company or employer, which may be due to economic conditions of a specific employer or in society as a whole. These furloughs may be s ...

payments to businesses in the hospitality and retail sectors. B&M was among several businesses classified as 'essential retailers' and as a result was allowed to remain open when other 'non-essential businesses had to close. In November 2020, B&M and other retailers were subject to a public outcry for having not handed back payments totalling £1.8 billion intended for propping up retailers prevented from trading due to restrictions, despite making record profits. The retailer declared £296m in profit and as a result issued a £250m special dividend despite having received £38m in business rates relief and £3.7m in furlough payments. The Arora brothers received a combined total of £37m of the special dividend due to their 15% shareholding which is said to worth at least £750m. The firm agreed to pay £80m in business rate relief it had saved, a move mirrored by major supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons.

Personal life

He is married to Shalni Arora, who has a Natural Sciences degree from Cambridge University, and was a co-founder of bio-tech business DxS. They have two daughters. Arora lives in Hale Barns near Altrincham, next door to his brother Bobby. Arora owns three of the flats at 3–10 Grosvenor Crescent, a Grade II* listed terrace in London's Belgravia district, where he unsuccessfully opposed a legal dispute about concierge services in 2017. Arora donated £50,000 to the Conservative Party in early 2020.

References

1969 births Living people British businesspeople British billionaires Alumni of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge Conservative Party (UK) donors {{UK-business-bio-1960s-stub