Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder, 47, is giving away his £3 million fortune to charity because it is not making him happy.

He has already sold six gliders valued at £350,000, as well as his profitable interior furnishings business, and is selling his lakeside villa near Insbruck and a farmhouse in Provence, together valued at over £2 million.

His objective is to have nothing left, and he told the Daily Telegraph “All the luxury and comsumerism is not real life. Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness.” He intends to move to a bedsit in Insbruck, or a wooden mountain hut, surviving on £800 a month, and donate his fortune to a microcredit charity he set up in Latin America, from which he draws no salary, to offer small loans and business advice.