The economic recovery of 2021 also left its mark on the great fortunes, which increased in number and in the volume of wealth they managed. In Spain, without going any further, the number of millionaires increased last year by 4.4%, reaching 246,500 people. They are 10,400 more than in 2020, a year in which the proliferation of super-rich did not stop. And the wealth they managed increased even more: their assets reached 719,700 million dollars last year (more than 686,000 million euros, at current exchange rates), which is 5.3% more than in 2020. That is, the year ended up with more millionaires and these in turn became even richer, according to the World Wealth Report 2022 published this Wednesday by the investment manager Capgemini.
The analysis, which offers 2021 data for 71 markets that represent 98% of the world’s wealth, considers people who have more than one million dollars (about 954,000 euros) in what they consider to be assets to be very wealthy. investable” (which excludes the first residence, pieces of art and certain consumable goods). With these premises, it is estimated that there are 22.5 million super-rich people in the world, which is 7.8% more than in the previous year. As for the combined value of their fortunes, this amounted to 86 billion dollars (82 billion euros), which represents 8% more than in the first year of the pandemic. The world series shows that both in number and in wealth, the great fortunes added three consecutive years of growth last year, after a slight bump in 2018.
The main source of wealth growth for the super fortunes came in 2021 from North America. There the number of millionaires increased by 13.2% and the joint wealth they accumulated increased by 13.8%. In contrast, Latin America was the only region where the super-rich fell, although it was a slight decline (-0.2%) and those who maintained that status managed to accumulate 1.8% more wealth. On average for both regions, European fortunes managed to progress faster than Asians both in the number of millionaires (a 6.7% increase in Europe, compared to 4.2% in Asia) and in the growth of the fortune they manage (7.5% and 5.4%, respectively). These differences in growth rates meant that, from the point of view of the number of large fortunes, North America (7.9 million super-rich) once again distanced itself from Asia-Pacific (7.2 million) and Europe came closer to this last (5.7 million).
Four countries (USA, Japan, Germany and China) concentrate more than six out of ten great world fortunes. The American supremacy is undeniable, with 7.5 million millionaires, and last year it was strengthened by being the country where they grew the most (13.5%). Japan is the second territory with the most super-rich (3.7 million) and Germany (1.6 million) managed to get some distance from China (1.5 million). Spain remains in 15th position worldwide, behind Iran and ahead of Russia. 12 of the top 20 positions correspond to European countries and none of Latin America enters that classification.
more ultra rich
The report also analyzes how the different categories of millionaires evolve, which it divides into three types: the next door (something that could be translated as neighboring millionaires and refers to those who are less rich within the group of super rich, since they have between 1 and 5 million dollars), those of the middle level (from 5 to 30 million dollars) and the ultra rich (more than 30 million dollars). ). One clear conclusion is that last year was more fruitful for the wealthier. The number of ultra-rich grew by 9.6% to end the year with 220,100 people with assets of more than $30 million. Despite being only 1% of the super-rich included in the report, they accumulated 34% of the total wealth. At the opposite extreme, those who do not reach 5 million assets account for almost 90% of the total and control 43.2% of the wealth. Last year they did not do badly, they grew by 7.7% in number (20.2 million in total) and their assets increased by 7.8%, but they did not do as well as the ultra-rich.
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Capgemini is a wealth management firm with a global presence and that is why the study devotes an important part to analyzing how the way in which the super-rich manage their fortunes is evolving. Among the trends to which it points, the greater diversity of the group of super-rich stands out, with more presence of women and millennials, and the progression of what he calls technological wealth, that is, millionaires whose wealth comes from a technological company. At a global level, it indicates that investments with sustainability objectives (what in jargon is called ESG, for the English acronym for environment, social and corporate governance) occupy 71% of the millionaires under 40 years of age, while among the older only with priority for 49%. The young super-rich North Americans are the most concerned about these aspects (76%), closely followed by Latin Americans (74%) and Europeans (72%). Among investors over 40 years old, Asia-Pacific is, excluding Japan, the region with the highest awareness of these investments (68%), followed by Europe (58%) and Latin America (47%).
