YOU can't get a much better start on the road to riches than being brought up in East Lancashire!

With two of the four wealthiest under-35s in the country boasting strong local links, the area is the now the most fertile ground in the country for budding tycoons.

Shami Ahmed, who used to work in his father's fashion business every evening after coming home from school in Burnley, comes in at second in the league table of young multi-millionaires.

Shami, 34, who heads Manchester-based clothing empire The Legendary Joe Bloggs Company, is worth an estimated £50 million.

And Tahir Mohsan, 25, who helped his older brother Tariq build the Burnley-based computer firm Granville Technology Group is listed at joint second in the table with a share of the family's estimated fortune of £50 million.

The company began with a small advertisement offering a computer for sale in the Lancashire Eveneing Telegraph and has since grown to become one of East Lancashire's biggest employers with a workforce of more than 500.

Top of the table compiled by men's magazine Arena is Charles Dunstone, 32, founder of the Carphone Warehouse shop chain.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.