WealthX study reveals insights into those with US$5-30m fortunes
The past year has been a positive one for many wealthy people’s fortunes according to stats from WealthX.
The firm’s newly-released edition of its Very-High-Net-Worth (VHNW) Handbook reveals that the global population of people with net worth of between US$5m and $30m increased to 2.7 million in 2020, a rise of 1.3% year-over-year.
This cohort of wealthy people includes a diverse range from entrepreneurs and business owners, high-earning executives, retirees, and inheritors.
Despite the challenges of the pandemic, this group also increased its combined net worth by 1.2% to $26.8 trillion.
Growth for these individuals was most pronounced in North America and Asia, while Latin America and the Caribbean saw the largest decline. China led the growth with a 9% rise in the number of VHNW individuals.
However, the US remains way out in front in population and dollar terms with a 7.9% year-over-year growth in population pushing the total to more than 1 million individuals with a combined $9.5 trillion net worth.
Canada ranks seventh in the top ten with 72,880 VHNW individuals with a combined net worth of US$789 billion. That’s a population drop of 4% year-over-year. A recent study from Statistics Canada found it’s getting harder to become richer.
Uneven distribution, rebalancing ahead
The WealthX study highlights an unequal distribution of wealth among VHNW individuals.
With the average net worth per individual at $10 million, two-thirds of the VHNW class have a net worth that places them in the lowest of the cohort’s four wealth tiers ($5 million to $10 million), commanding just under half of total VHNW wealth.
Meanwhile, the average age of VHNW individuals is 60, with more than half of the population between 50 and 70. The UAE, Bangladesh and Qatar have the youngest VHNW populations — they represent economies where wealth creation has been fairly recent.
The next few years is expected to see further growth in this wealthy cohort with a rebalancing of wealth across regions driving, in part, a rise of 1.2 million compared to 2020. That would mean a global population of VHNW individuals of 3.8 million by 2025.
The entire study is available at hnwhandbook.com
