This year’s Global Wealth Report published by Credit Suisse highlights the distribution of global wealth across regions and countries which the financial services company believes is crucial when understanding fully how assets are allocated.
This year’s Global Wealth Report published by Credit Suisse highlights the distribution of global wealth across regions and countries which the financial services company believes is crucial when understanding fully how assets are allocated.
An example is made of China, a country that has grown in wealth five times since the start of this century because of financial assets, has gained over 150% in stock prices between June 2014 and June 2015, but declined sharply after, the report explained.
Another important revelation the report was that at the top of the wealth pyramid, there are now over 120,000 UHNWIs (ultra-high net worth individuals) who are worth over $50 million each. “The fortunes created in China led to the rapid emergence of a sizable UHNW population, which now makes up 8% of global UHNWIs,” CEO of Credit Suisse, Tidjane Thiam said in the introduction to the report.
Thiam also mentioned that the report would focus on middle class wealth as this has grown at a slower pace than the top end in the hierarchy. “This has reversed the pre-crisis trend, which saw the share of middle-class wealth remaining fairly stable over time. These results reinforce our findings from last year’s edition of this report, which argued that wealth inequality had widened in most countries in the years after the 2008 crisis,” the survey reported.
Credit Suisse does say that the middle class will continue to expand in emerging economies and growth in expected to continue in Asia.