Emerging Market Business Leaders Join Billionaire Ranks; Still Big Gaps - SocGen/Forbes

Tom Burroughes

28 March 2013

Businesspeople in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Middle East are joining the ranks of the world’s billionaires but lag so far in creating global brands, while they are also overwhelmingly first-generation wealth holders, according a study by Forbes in association with Societe Generale Private Banking.

The report, Emerging Markets: Joining The Global Ranks Of Wealth Creators, demonstrates that fast-growing economies differ greatly in terms of attitudes over wealth, philanthropy and related pursuits. The study was based on analysis of 250 ultra high net worth individuals, each with an average of $2.8 billion of financial assets, tracked in a total of 22 countries. The population surveyed is 98 per cent male, and 78 per cent first generation.

Emerging market economies have put their more mature peers in the shade in recent years, with countries such as Russia, China, Brazil and India posting strong percentage growth rates and seeing their currencies – to a degree – appreciating. The trend has also seen wealth managers from countries such as Switzerland increasingly prospecting for new earnings in such locations.

But for all the talk of the emerging market rise, the report noted that there is still a big gap between the number of super-rich in the Western economies and the emerging world. For example, the average fortune of the 20 richest persons in the US is $24.3 billion, and $20.1 billion in Western Europe, while in Russia, it is $10.1 billion; Middle East, $7.6 billion; Emerging Europe, $3.2 billion and Africa, $2.3 billion.

UHNW individuals in emerging market countries also tend to be far more reticent about their wealth than among developed country counterparts, although the overall figures mask considerable regional variations. For example, when graded on a scale of one to 10, or from not open at all to very transparent, mature markets score 7.3, while emerging markets score 4.2, the report said.

The emerging market business leaders lag, to some extent, behind the developed world in being linked with global brands, the report said. Some 6 per cent of the world’s 2,000 biggest firms are owned or co-owned by UHNW individuals from Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. However, some 14 per cent of the world’s billionaires hail from these regions.

Among specific details, the average age of UHNW individuals is 50 years in Russia; Middle East, 61; Africa, 61 and Central and Eastern Europe, 54. The biggest individual fortune size by region is $4,600 billion for Russia. Russia also holds the top figure – 100 per cent – for share of population that is first-generation in wealth terms; in the Middle East, 34 per cent is first generation; in Africa, it is 24 per cent, and in Central and Eastern Europe, it is only 10 per cent.