The World Added 412 Billionaires in 2020, Bringing the Total to 3,288
The billionaires’ combined wealth rose 32% year over year.
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The billionaires’ combined wealth rose 32% year over year to US$14.7 trillion, a sum that falls between the GDP of the world’s two biggest economies, the U.S. (with US$19.5 trillion) and China (with $12.2 trillion).
“A stock market boom, driven partly by quantitative easing, and flurry of new listings have minted eight new dollar billionaires a week for the past year,” Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher, said in a statement. “The world has never seen this much wealth created in just one year, much more than perhaps could have been expected for a year so badly disrupted by Covid-19.”
Three individuals added more than $50 billion in a single year, led by Tesla’s Elon Musk who added US$151 billion and climbed to the top spot of the Hurun Global Rich List with a net worth of US$197 billion. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos dropped to the second place, despite his wealth growing US$50 billion last year to a total of US$189 billion.
Colin Zheng Huang of Pinduoduo, China’s e-commerce giant, also saw his net worth grow more than $50 billion to US$69 billion, earning him the title of 19th richest billionaire in the world.
China jumped way ahead of the U.S. with 1,058 billionaires, up 259 from a year ago. The U.S. added 70 billionaires to take the total to 696 billionaires, according to the report, which calculates the billionaires’ wealth based on market data as of Jan. 15.
Other key findings in the report include:
- Five people have more than US$100 billion, including Musk, Bezos, LVMH’s Bernard Arnault (US$114 billion), Bill Gates (US$110 billion), and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (US$101 billion);
- California-based Austin Russell of car sensor maker Luminar Technologies was the youngest self-made billionaire, at 25 years old, with US$3.5 billion;
- Beijing had the largest number of billionaires, with 145; Shanghai (113) overtook New York (112) as the runner-up. Six of the top 10 cities with the highest concentration of billionaires were in China;
- Healthcare and real estate tied as the main source of wealth for the world’s billionaires, each accounting for 8.7% of total billionaire wealth;
- There were 231 self-made female billionaires, an increase of 51 from a year ago. China dominated with 69% of the world’s self-made women billionaires.
Last year saw a net addition of 17 cryptocurrency billionaires, who derived their wealth from holding currency tokens. Blockchain also had 17 billionaires, whose wealth was predominantly from crypto exchanges, according to the report.
“We are currently right in the heart of a new industrial revolution, with the ABCDEs—that is AI, blockchain, cloud, data, and e-commerce—creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs and leading to a concentration of wealth and economic power on a scale never seen before,” Hoogewerf said in the report.
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Amid looming rate rises, there are reasons to be cheerful as mortgage holders head into 2023
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Mortgage holders should brace themselves for more pain as the Reserve Bank of Australia board prepares to meet tomorrow for the first time this year.
Most economists and the major banks are predicting a rise of 25 basis points will be announced, although the Commonwealth Bank suggests that the RBA may take the unusual step of a 40 basis point rise to bring the interest rate up to a more conventional 3.5 percent. This would allow the RBA to step back from further rate rises for the next few months as it assesses the impact of tightening monetary policy on the economy.
The decision by the RBA board to make consecutive rate rises since April last year is an attempt to wrestle inflation down to a more manageable 3 or 4 percent. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that the inflation rate rose to 7.8 percent over the December quarter, the highest it has been since 1990, reflected in higher prices for food, fuel and construction.
Higher interest rates have coincided with falling home values, which Ray White chief economist Nerida Conisbee says are down 6.1 percent in capital cities since peaking in March 2022. The pain has been greatest in Sydney, where prices have dropped 10.8 percent since February last year. Melbourne and Canberra recorded similar, albeit smaller falls, while capitals like Adelaide, which saw property prices fall 1.8 percent, are less affected.
Although prices may continue to decline, Ms Conisbee (below) said there are signs the pace is slowing and that inflation has peaked.
“December inflation came in at 7.8 per cent with construction, travel and electricity costs being the biggest drivers. It is likely that we are now at peak,” Ms Conisbee said.
“Many of the drivers of high prices are starting to be resolved. Shipping costs are now down almost 90 per cent from their October 2021 peak (as measured by the Baltic Dry Index), while crude oil prices have almost halved from March 2022. China is back open and international migration has started up again.
“Even construction costs look like they are close to plateau. Importantly, US inflation has pulled back from its peak of 9.1 per cent in June to 6.5 per cent in December, with many of the drivers of inflation in this country similar to Australia.”
Australian lenders hope no-interest cards can arrest a decline in usage and attract younger customers.
