It’s a good time for the self-made American billionaire, and those who made their wealth on their own are doing better than those to the manor born, a new report says.
“For the first time in 10 years, the average wealth of self-made billionaires surpassed the average wealth of U.S. billionaires with inherited fortunes,” say UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers in their joint annual report, “Billionaires Insights: Are Billionaires Feeling the Pressure?” The self-made averaged $4.5 billion while inheritors averaged $4.3 billion, the report says.
“The U.S. has always been a standout for creating wealth, and this report shows that the American dream is alive,” says John Mathews, head of Private Wealth Management at UBS. However, new billionaires are now created at a faster pace in Asia than in any other region, with communist China leading the way, the report says.
The study says 210 people became billionaires in 2015, and more than half of those were from Asia.
These changes have come in a 10-year period when total billionaire wealth has declined by some $300 billion, the report says. However, the new billionaires are doing very well.
“The U.S., which boasts the biggest collection of billionaires by region, set the trend,” says the report. Total U.S. billionaire wealth fell, but new money fared better than old, falling by just 4 percent, from an average of $4.7 billion per individual to $4.5 billion, says Michael Spellacy, leader of global wealth management at PwC.
The report also says there will be many inherited fortunes over the next generation. Approximately 460 billionaires will transfer $2.1 trillion to their heirs in the next 20 years.
Europe Keeps It In The Family
Europe, the report says, has been the best region at keeping the billions all in the family. It has the greatest number of the world’s multigenerational billionaires at 182 (54% of the region’s total billionaires), and they have proved to be the most resilient at preserving their fortunes.
“While it may not be the best at creating great wealth, Europe has proved the best at keeping it,” says the report. “The region’s billionaire wealth remained broadly the same (with a small fall of 3%), at $1.3 trillion.”
Its multigenerational billionaires survived 2015 far better than those in other regions, the report says. The European billionaire’s average wealth fell just 7%, from $4.1 billion to $3.8 billion, UBS/PwC officials said.
A second-generation southern European billionaire told the survey: “While 10 years ago, our business was the growth engine to our family wealth, in recent years it has gone the opposite way. We use the returns from our private assets to support our business, allowing us to maintain and expand our market share against our competitors.”
The European region’s relatively small group of self-made billionaires experienced a similar fall in wealth. On average, their fortunes fell 8%, from $3.9 billion to $3.5 billion. UBS officials also said that Europe has the two best governments for preserving wealth: Germany and Switzerland.
Europe ranks a close second to the U.S. for total multigenerational billionaire wealth, the report says.
Where Are The Well-Heeled Blue Bloods?
Thirty-three percent of the United States’ billionaires, or 175, are multigenerational, while 15%, or 76, of the Asia-Pacific region’s are. Asia, led by China, is creating billionaires at a faster pace than the United States and Europe, the report said.
“Asia created one billionaire nearly every three days, accounting for over half of new billionaires in 2015,” says the report. Also, “Most of 2015’s new [global] billionaires were entrepreneurs and from Asia.” One hundred and fifty of the total 210 new billionaires around the world were self-made and 113 from Asia.
Indeed, although self-made American billionaires are leading the way, the overall growth of billionaires in the United States is slowing. “The country’s billionaire population grew by just five in 2015, to 538. Yet their total wealth fell by 6%—from $2.6 trillion to $2.4 trillion.”
U.S. self-made billionaires have driven this second Gilded Age that began in the 1980s. The U.S. hosts almost half (47%) of billionaire wealth. But the world’s leading billionaire economy has lost some of its momentum. Often it’s difficult to retain the billions.
The wealth is often short-lived, the report says, because of business risk. Indeed, of the fortunes that have fallen below the billion-dollar mark in the past 20 years, 90% did so in the first and second generation. More than two-thirds (70%) of the fortunes have not remained intact beyond the first generation and a further fifth (20%) were gone by the end of the second.
Most of the world’s billionaires have made their money in the last 20 years, and now they are aging, the report says.
“In this time, billionaire wealth has grown by approximately seven times. So by far the biggest handover ever to the next generation is about to happen. We estimate that 460 of the billionaires in the markets we cover will pass $2.1 trillion,” the report says.
The report reviewed 20 years of data and examined the records of some 1,400 billionaires.
