Global financial wealth reaches $135.5 trillion

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

NewYork’s Manhattan skyline is seen. The US remains home to more wealthy individuals than any other nation, with 5,876 million millionaire households, Boston Colsulting Group’s 13th annual Global Wealth Report shows. AFP photo

Global private financial wealth grew at a fairly high rate of 7.8 percent in 2012, beating the 3.6 percent rise in 2011, and reached nearly $135.5 trillion, according to the Boston Consulting Group’s 13th annual Global Wealth Report, which was launched last week. While the developed world made money on mainly equity markets, the so-called emerging world earned a lot from higher GDP growths.

The year 2012 appeared to be the best in recent history. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that the principal driver of the rise in the wealth was the “strong rebound in equity markets,” particularly during the second half of the year.

In the developing economies of BCG’s “new world,” however, the phenomenon was inverted, with newly created wealth accounting for 55.6 percent of total wealth growth, according to the report. At $2.5 trillion, the newly created wealth in these economies was also greater in nominal terms than the
$1.4 trillion of newly created wealth in the “old world”.

This was the result of another year of strong GDP growth in the developing world, where the collective economy expanded 10.1 percent. In comparison, North America, Western Europe and Japan’s collective GDP grew by just 2.3 percent.

US tops lists

The total number of millionaire households reached 13.8 million globally in 2012, 0.9 percent of all households. For the time being, the U.S. is still home to more wealthy individuals than any other nation, with 5,876 million millionaire households. Japan comes in a distant second at 1,460 million. The U.S. also leads the way when it comes to ultra high net worth households with more than $100 million in private financial wealth, with 3,016 such households. The U.K. falls in second place with 1,001. China lies in wait in third place on both lists, with 1,304 million millionaire households and 851 ultra-high net worth households. Turkey is the 8th country in the list ranking countries which have most ultra-high net worth households with more than $100 million in private financial wealth, with 357 such households.

The highest density of millionaires was, however, in Qatar, where 143 of every 1,000 households had private wealth of at least $1 million, followed by Switzerland with 116, Kuwait with 115, Hong Kong with 94, and Singapore with 82.