People with the highest net worth saw their number and the value of their wealth experience the largest decline in ten years last year, according to an international study conducted by the consulting firm Capgemini, driven by a decline in stock market indices. The number of high-net-worth individuals worldwide, defined by Capgemini as people whose disposable money outside their principal residence exceeds one million dollars, fell by 3.3% in 2022 to 21.7 million people, the firm calculated in a study released Thursday.
Logically, the value of their wealth also declined, with an estimated total wealth of 83,000 billion dollars, a decrease of 3.6% compared to the previous year. "This represents the biggest setback in a decade, due to macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties," Capgemini said in its report, which assessed 71 countries and uses a statistical census system and a graphical representation called the Lorenz curve as a methodology.
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The outbreak of war in Ukraine and its consequences on the planet, as well as soaring inflation and rising central bank interest rates, have made 2022 a particularly difficult year economically. Stock market indices fell sharply last year: the CAC 40 index lost 9.5%, the Nasdaq in the United States plunged 33%, and the S&P 500 index, bringing together the 500 largest American companies, fell 20%.
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There is necessarily a correlation" between the evolution of stock market indices and that of fortunes because wealth is increasingly made up of financial assets, said Elias Ghanem, director of financial research at the Capgemini group. Some of the biggest fortunes themselves experienced a sharp slowdown in the growth of their fortunes last year, from the world's top fortune and LVMH boss Bernard Arnault to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg or L'Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, according to Forbes magazine's real-time wealth index.
In detail, fortunes located in North America experienced the largest decline in value with -7.4%, followed by those located in Europe (-3.2%) and Asia-Pacific (-2.7%), according to the study. Conversely, those in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East rose, Capgemini notes, thanks to solid performances in the oil and gas sectors, whose prices soared with the outbreak of war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia by the West. In January, Oxfam estimated in a report published at the opening of the Davos Forum that "economic inequality has reached extreme and dangerous levels" and the NGO had advocated for "abolishing" billionaires in the long term.