More Billionaires Than Ever, New Billionaires Created All the Time
By reading IndustryTap, you are most likely an engineer or scientist and have an aptitude for math. This means you and your children, if they receive the “math gene” from you, have an aptitude that is a critical skill needed by those who have the potential to become billionaires. Some of the professions overrepresented in the billionaire class include engineer, accountant and small business owner.
Wealth Shift Towards Asia
While the United States dominates the world with nearly 500 billionaires, led by Bill Gates, with China at nearly 200 and Russia at nearly 120, the highest rates of the creation of new billionaires is occurring in Asia. Asia technically includes the Middle East, as it is part of the Asian continent.
There are 18 countries in the Middle East, home to more than 150 billionaires with combined wealth of more than $350 billion, representing about 40% of total wealth in the region; in Europe this number is 28%, North America 22% and Asia 18%.
Asia also shows the fastest growth in the percentage of millionaires and ultra-millionaires (those with over $100 million in assets) indicating a huge global shift is underway. Over the next 50 years, the global balance of wealth and power are likely to be more balanced but with a decided advantage to Asia, home to to two largest countries in the world.
Wealth In The Middle East
The Middle East is currently home to about 80 billionaires with an aggregate net worth of $210 billion, with more than 30% of these related by birth.
Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim Al Thani, for example, is worth $2 billion dollars and hails from the world’s richest country by per capita income at close to $100,000 per year. Qatar also has the highest density of millionaires with more than 14% of its population having at least $1 million in assets and the fourth highest concentration of ultra-millionaires, those with at least $100 million in in assets.
Sheikh Faisal’s runs 50 businesses across nine industries and is most noted for his luxury hotels and natural gas related activities that capitalize on Qatar’s huge natural gas reserves, the third largest in the world.
The following is a video by Wealth-X which has teamed with UBS to begin tracking and reporting on the patterns of wealth accumulation worldwide.
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References and related content:
- Self-Made Billionaire Characteristic – Business Insider
- Billionaire Clusters – Forbes
- 9 Reasons Why The 9-Year-Old Founder Of Caine’s Arcade Will Be A Billionaire In 30 Years – Forbes
