Global turmoil, volatile markets knock dozens off billionaire list
The world’s richest people became a little less well off last year, according to a report by UBS and PwC, as geopolitical turmoil and volatile equity markets reduced the wealth of billionaires for the first time in a decade.
The wealth of billionaires fell by $388bn (R5.7-trillion) globally to $8.539-trillion, the UBS/PwC “billionaires report” found, with a particularly sharp fall in Greater China — the second-biggest home for billionaires after the US — and the Asia-Pacific region more broadly.
Private banks, including the world’s largest wealth manager UBS, have felt the effects of USChina trade tension and global political uncertainty, as clients shied away from trading and taking on debt in favour of hoarding more cash in 2018.
“Billionaire wealth dipped in 2018 for the first time since 2008 because of geopolitics,” UBS’s head of ultra-high net worth clients, Josef Stadler, said in the report that was published on Friday.
The net worth of China’s richest dropped 12.8% in dollar terms on the back of tumbling stock markets and a weaker local currency and as growth in the world’s second-largest economy slowed to its lowest level in nearly three decades in 2018, the report found, knocking dozens off the billionaires list.
Despite the drop, China continues to produce a new billionaire every two to two-and-ahalf days, Stadler said.
Worldwide, the number of billionaires fell everywhere except in the Americas, where tech entrepreneurs continued to buoy the ranks of the US’s wealthiest. This report shows the resilience of the US economy,” where there were 749 billionaires at the end of 2018, said John Matthews, head of private wealth management and ultra-high net worth business for UBS in the US.
While a stock market recovery from a steep drop in late 2018 has helped wealth managers increase their assets, the world’s richest families remain concerned about global affairs from trade tensions and Brexit to populism and climate change and are continuing to keep more of their money in cash.
“It is likely that billionaire wealth will go up again this year,” said Simon Smiles, UBS’s chief investment officer for ultra-wealthy clients.
Smiles said that this would probably be a more muted increase than the wider financial market rally might suggest.