David Beech, the chief executive of listed UK law firm Knights, has joined The Sunday Times 2020 Rich List with estimated wealth of £130m.

Beech is a new entrant on the list of the UK’s 1,000 richest people at 923= and owes his presence to his role driving Knights’ turnover from £8m in 2012 to £52.7m in 2019.

Joining Beech as new entrants are young entrepreneur Ben Francis, the founder of the clothes company Gymshark, and Barbadian pop star Rihanna because she is currently living in London.

According to The Sunday Times’s research, Beech owns a 44.32% stake in the firm, which listed on London’s AIM exchange in June 2018, having originally led a management buy out in 2012, supported by the private equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw.

When he joined the East Midlands firm in 2011 it boasted a modest two offices and 150 professionals.

Its latest acquisitions, in March, saw the firm snap up Leeds-based Shulmans and South East-based ASB Law in a brace of deals worth up to a combined £28.6m.

The deals took its fee earner count to 900 across 15 offices and marked the latest stage of its plan to become the largest legal and professional services firm outside London.

Beech, who started his career practising as a regional lawyer before spending ten years in private equity, enters the rich list at the expense of former incumbents whose wealth has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the crisis having reduced the combined wealth of the group for the first time since the financial crash — by £54bn (3.7%).

Knights was one of the first law firms on either side of the Atlantic to announce cost cutting measures in response to the pandemic.

In an update on 26 March, it said board members’ salaries were being reduced by 30% and those of all employees earning more than £30,000 annually by 10% from 1 April.

Beech said at the time: "We enter this period of uncertainty as a resilient, well-invested, diversified and cash generative business offering a unique proposition in the highly fragmented and often under-invested market for legal services outside London.”

Knights’ share price closed at £3.62 on Friday, down from an all-time hire of £4.88 in February.

Also appearing on the list is Michael Chambers, the former owner of the Chambers and Partners directory business, who is ranked at 793= with estimated wealth of £153m, unchanged since last year.

He sold the directory business in 2018 to private equity firm Inflexion and has converted his old offices in London’s Covent Garden into CineCentre, a shared workspace for film and television ventures, and The Garden Cinema, whose opening has been postponed due to Covid-19.

The valuations for this year's list were carried out up to the end of April with some figures adjusted where there have been major changes in the value of listed companies.

They are based on identifiable wealth including land, property, racehorses, art as well as significant shares in publicly quoted companies.