Dot.com loser list grows

Investors saw the value of their shares slide

They were once lured by the prospect of great riches as the dot.com bubble seemed to grow ever larger.

But it has been a rocky ride for investors in technology, media and telecoms (TMT) stocks, as a turbulent stock market has sent share prices tumbling.

In a dramatic turnaround, many of the entrepreneurs behind the dot.com start-ups face losses which have reduced their millions to meagre sums.

As the Sunday Times publishes its list of the richest people in the world, the Mail on Sunday focuses on some of the biggest dot.com losers in its Rich Report Update.

Billions drained

Top of its list is British scientist Dr Andrew Rickman, whose fortune last year stood at £1.57bn.

His shares in Bookham Technology, the company he started in a room above his garage, have dropped £1.4bn from their peak last July.

Top five web losers

Dr Andrew Rickman, computer technology, lost £1.44bn

Gordon Crawford, financial software, (£1.2bn)

Kevin Leech, venture capitalist (£1.16bn)

Hinduja brothers, Asian business tycoons (£1.15bn)

Philippe Poriel-Destezet, recruitment (£1bn)

The company, whose inventions included a way of transmitting information across fibre-optic telephone networks, was once the toast of the technology world.

But as a wave of copycat products dented its niche in the market, Bookham's shares halved within the space of two months.

Mr Rickman is not alone in his colossal losses, as four other Brits have had to part with £1bn over the past year.

Among them are the Hinduja brothers, whose names came to prominence earlier this year as a result of the Mandelson passport affair.

Over the past year they have seen £1.15bn disappear from their global fortune.

Owners of vehicle manufacturers Ashok Leyland and Hinduja Finance Corporation, their wealth has plummeted to £800m from £1.95bn.

Rise and fall

Computer company Psion has also felt the harsh bite of the technoshare slowdown.

Founder of the handheld computer company, David Potter, cashed in around £65m when he sold a million Psion shares last March.

Srichand Hinduja: A troubled year

While share values rose to a peak of £14.50 - they now stand at just 105p as rivals gain ground in the palmtop computer sector.

Moving further down the scale of losses, one-time financial journalist Tim Jackson has discovered what it is like to ride the dot.com rollercoaster.

When he floated his online auction house QXL in October 1999, he was worth £423m overnight.

Today he is worth just £5.8m, with share values falling from a peak of £7.44 to a lowly 5p.

Celebs lose out

A number of celebrities have also had their fingers burnt in the big shares meltdown.

TV chef Delia Smith must have dreamed of cooking up healthy profits when her website Deliaonline.com was last year valued at £60m.

Bowie: Online bank has suffered

Today the foodie website could be said to be worth peanuts as it failed to turn in the tidy sums expected.

Singer David Bowie was one of the first entertainers to invest heavily in the web.

But setting his sites on an internet banking venture - Bowiebanc.com - has failed to yield the £30m that was predicted.

The venture is part of American bank USABancshares.com - which is reported to be on the verge of collapse - taking Bowie's dreams of internet millions with it.

Other celebs to have lost out in creative web ventures include actress Joanna Lumley, tipped to make £5m with the health and beauty website clickmango.com - and Madonna's music website group Artist direct, where the megastar faces losses of £665,000 as backers continue to bale out.