Survey: Wealthy Close to Recovery

By staff Writer

June 28, 2010 at 08:00 PM

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The world's population of high-net-worth individuals increased to 10 million in 2009, up 17% from the total recorded a year earlier, researchers report.

Capgemini U.S. L.L.C., Paris, and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, a unit of Bank of America Corp., Charlotte, N.C., have published that figure in a review of the high-net-worth (HNW) market.

The HNW population is now close to where it was 2 years ago, before the 2008 financial crisis rolled in.

The recovery has generally been stronger in emerging and developing nations than in mature ones, but a majority of the HNW individuals are in the United States, Japan and Germany, analysts say.

Nationals of those countries accounted for 53.5% of the world's HNW population in 2009, down slightly from 54% in 2008.

The analysts who developed the study defined HNW individuals as those with $1 million or more in investable assets.

The population of ultra-high-net-worth individuals – individuals with at least $30 million in investable assets – was about 90,000 in 2009, and those individuals accounted for 35.5% of global HNW individual wealth, up from 34.7% in 2008, the analysts say.

The population of North American ultra-HNW individuals increased to 36,300 in 2009 from 30,600 in 2008. But the total is down from 41,200 in 2007.

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