The proportion of people whose net worth doesn’t amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, but who are still extremely wealthy and therefore an important target group for private banking as well as companies offering quality products and services, is increasing every year.
These wealthy people are called high-net-worth individuals or HNWIs. The net worth of an HNWI generally exceeds one million dollars, but in the case of ultra-high-net-worth individuals, it exceeds as much as 30 million dollars.
According to forecasts, the number of people whose net worth is at least a million dollars will exceed 30 million in the next five years.
The USA leads the way
According to the 2019 Global HNW Analysis carried out by research company Wealth-X, the number of HNWIs in the world at the end of 2018 was 22.4 million, with almost 40% or 8.7 million of them living in the United States, reports CNBC. The total net worth of US millionaires amounted to 22.7 billion dollars (UHNWIs not included). The analysis clearly shows that Americans are far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of wealth.
China ranks second after the US for its number of people whose net worth is from 1-30 million dollars. 1.9 millionaires live there and their total net worth is ca 5 billion dollars. Chinese HNWIs love art: they invest as much as 19% of their money in it.
Japan ranks third with 1.6 million millionaires. The total net worth of Japanese HNWIs is 4.4 billion dollars. As showing off one’s wealth is not considered polite in Japanese culture, the wealthy people in the country prefer to invest in their health and a secure retirement instead of ostentatious glamour.
Germany, the biggest economy in Europe, only ranks fourth with its 1 million HNWIs: the total net worth of German millionaires is 3 billion dollars. Germans, who are frugal by nature, are reluctant to take out loans even when rich and they bargain hard over luxury goods whenever possible, writes Handelsblatten.
Although half a million dollars is also a very large amount, the ‘really rich’ tend to view it as small change. According to the list of billionaires published by Forbes, the richest person in the world is the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, whose net worth amounts to 131 billion dollars.
The richest people in the Baltics
There are as yet few very wealthy people in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but there are millionaires and billionaires in this region as well. The wealthiest person in the Baltic States is the owner of Vilniaus prekyba (i.e. the Maxima chain), Nerijus Numavičius, whose net worth according to Lithuanian media is up to 1.2 billion euros.
The wealthiest person in Estonia according to Äripäev is the founder of TransferWise, Kristo Käärmann, whose net worth amounts to 258 million euros. The wealthiest person in Latvia at the end of last year according to Dienas Bizness was Arnis Riekstiņš, one of the owners of the IT company Mikrotīkls, whose net worth amounts to 172 million euros.
Common interests
Are people who have loads of money similar in their interests? Surveys indicate that there are certain similarities. For example, almost 40% of them are actively interested in – surprise, surprise – business trends and the economy. The majority of wealthy people are owners of companies, who invest in more than just their own business activities and therefore keep a close eye on the economy, reports Workandmoney.com.
Charity is also important: 36.4% of HNWIs are engaged in this according to one survey. Sports, education, technological development and public speaking skills also rank highly among the interests of the wealthy. Legendary billionaire investor Warren Buffet has said of the latter that it is the most important skill for career development.