If it is still too early to know the consequences of the Covid-19 crisis on the wealthiest, we now know that 2019 was an excellent vintage. The world counted last year nearly 19 and a half million millionaires and their cumulative wealth reached the astronomical figure of 74 trillion dollars ... Or an increase of 9% between 2018 and 2019, according to the last report of the Capgemini consulting company on wealth in the world.
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Significant fact: North America and Europe, with respective growth of around 11% and 9%, took the advantage and exceeded for the first time since 2012 the Asia-Pacific region (8%) in terms growth in wealth and the number of wealthy individuals.
But what is meant by "wealthy person"? The study considers under this name any individual possessing $ 1 million or more of investable assets, excluding main residence, collectibles, consumables and durable consumer goods.
Over a quarter of the world's millionaires in the United States
The ranking of the wealthiest individuals is dominated by the United States, where nearly 6 million millionaires lived in 2019. It is almost twice as much as Japan which occupies second place in the ranking with just over 3 million millionaires. Germany, the first European country in the ranking, completes the podium with almost 1.5 million millionaires. Next comes China, with more than 1.3 million people, and finally France in 5th position, which had 700,000. 7000 more than in 2018.
The rest of the top 10 is made up, always in descending order, of the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Canada, Italy and the Netherlands.
Evolving investment behaviors
Another lesson from the study: sustainable investments are more attractive to millionaires who want to devote 41% of their portfolio to it by the end of 2020 and 46% by 2021. A change of course noted by wealth management companies , since 80% of them now offer this kind of product. But who says green investment does not mean lower return in the eyes of the wealthy of this world: they are thus 39% hoping to earn more through this means than the previous year.
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Capgemini recalls, however, that the health crisis caused more than 18 trillion dollars to disappear on the world markets during the months of February and March 2020, before a slight recovery in April. Consequently, world wealth should decrease by 6% to 8% until the end of April 2020 (compared to 2019), the study predicts ... just like that of the wealthiest.
