Josh Spero finds somewhat cheering news for depressed billionaires in the new Capgemini/RBC report – but others are losing out
Some rare bad news for the wealthy has arrived in the form of the Capgemini/RBC World Wealth Report 2015, released this week: the wealthy are getting wealthier more slowly, and some are even getting poorer.
The number of HNWs (those with investable assets of $1 million or over) has grown globally by 6.7 per cent to 14.6 million, and their net worth by 7.2 per cent to $56.4 trillion. These are the second slowest rates of growth in the past five years, however.
Asia-Pacific now has 4.69 million HNWs, compared with North America’s 4.68 million, once again taking the lead in numbers, though America’s are together worth more ($16.2 trillion v $15.8 trillion).
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Crashing commodity prices and corporate scandals in Latin America have caused the number of wealthy there to fall by 2.1 per cent (to half a million) and their net worth by 0.5 per cent. Europe, in the eurozone doldrums and with equity markets declining, had the slowest growth in numbers (up 4 per cent to 4 million) and worth (up 4.6 per cent to $13 trillion).
UHNWs (those with investable assets of $30 million or over) have fared much better, outpacing their rate of growth in the past five year to rise 8.6 per cent in numbers and 7.4 per cent in worth. There are now 139,000 UHNWs in the world, the report estimates.
If growth continues at the average rate of the past five years, the report says total HNW wealth will rich $70 trillion in 2017 – which may be somewhat cheering news for any depressed billionaires out there.
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