George Harrison has left his widow Olivia not only wealthy but with a measure of control over her fortune. In the weeks before he died last November, the quiet Beatle saw that she was appointed director of five companies.
Publicity-shy Olivia is the key beneficiary of the George Harrison estate. She has assumed his board positions at Harrisongs, which owns the rights to songs he wrote and recorded as a solo artist, Apple Corps, the main Beatles' company, Apple Film, Apple Publishing, and Subafilms.
Harrisongs accounts filed in November show a turnaround from a £2.1m loss to retained profits of £2.5m last year, and Harrison's rights fees were £193,000, up from £172,000. Apple Corps, in which Olivia, 54, has inherited a 25 per cent stake worth £100m, made £2.7m profits last year, up from £830,000 thanks to phenumenal sales of the last Beatles compilation album, 1.
In death, George Harrison has become but property, with assets woth much more than they were in life. A 30th-anniversary reissue of All Things Must Pass, his solo magnificant opus, is enjoying massive sales after the re-release of My Sweet Lord last month which hit Number 1.
The Harrisons' 120-room gothic mansion at Friar Park, Henley-on-Thames, will surely have doubled in 2000, thanks to its association with the Beatle, as will their retreat on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
In all, the estate that Olivia, George's second wife, and her 23-year-old son Dhani have inherited is worth a least £135m- £30m more than last year.
But we deduce 10 per cent of his fortune which is to be distributed to the Hare Krishna community. Several millions have also been left in a selection of unnamed charities, leaving Olivia and Dhani £122m.