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The financial crisis has drained personal wealth across the globe: UK households saw their wealth drop by an average of almost £31,000 ($52,000) last year; the number of millionaire households in Australia has been slashed by 40 per cent; and between June 2007 and November 2008, Americans lost an estimated average of more than a quarter of their collective net worth.
However, according to the Futurewealth Report, these gloomy statistics haven't quashed the morale of tomorrow's super rich; 70 per cent of the respondents said that they expect to grow their personal wealth over the next 12 months. Indeed, far from financial Armageddon, the wealthy have weathered the economic storm with considerable nerve. While 34 per cent suffered personal financial losses, 41 per cent actually made money through the crisis, while 23 per cent claimed to be no worse off at all.
Tarek Khlat, Chief Executive of Crossbridge Capital Wealth Management, which deals with UK clients, said he was surprised so many had made money in the past year but said some had benefited from the rally in equities. "Many clients have had exposure to the equity market in the last year. If these individuals were shrewd enough to get in at the bottom of the US market in March then they could be up about 60 per cent. In the high net-worth space we have seen risk appetite returning and clients becoming more optimistic as prices have become more realistic," he said.
The Futurewealth Report, entitled Just who are the world's future wealthy? is part of the ongoing Futurewealth Project undertaken by Scorpio Partnership with foundation support from Standard Chartered Private Bank. According to Scorpio Partnership, the project is an attempt to identify and understand more about a section of global society that are regarded as upper end customers, but whose attitudes to wealth creation, saving and spending are not well understood. Scorpio Partnership said that these individuals are not the world's established wealthy of today, but the wealth creators who...