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505 Greeks hold 60 billion euro

21 October 2013 / 19:10:05  GRReporter
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505 people or 0.005% of Greece’s permanent residents are the owners of property worth 60 billion euro as stated by a piece of research on Greece carried out by the company Wealth-X. Their number has increased by 20% in comparison with 2012 when, according to the same ranking, the number of Greek billionaires was 455.

The total number of Greeks whose assets exceed the sum of one million euro is 8,000 and 2,687 of them hold in the stock exchange shares worth over one million euro.

At the same time, the uncertainty about Greek citizens’ deposits in foreign banks continues. According to some reports, they amount to almost 600 billion euro although banking sources claim that the amount is 100 billion euro.

At the same time, according to the Swiss bank Credit Suisse, the average wealth per adult citizen of Greece, calculated on the basis of the average estimates of the assets over the past year, has increased by 9.9% and amounts to 76,191.53 euro. This is due to the 139% rise in share prices compared to their lower price in the summer of 2012 as well as to the fact that the increase in the value of the euro has offset the decline in property prices this year.

At the same time, 900,000 Greeks who had invested their money in shares on the Athens Stock Exchange suffered financial losses amounting to 65 billion euro, the prices of urban properties fell by about 40% due to the haircut of the government debt and 11,000 Greeks who had invested their savings in government bonds saw them melting overnight.

The richest are the residents of Switzerland, where personal wealth amounts to 380,000 euro, followed by Australia and Norway. The average wealth per capita in the euro area is less than 150,000 euro, the wealthiest people being the residents of Luxembourg, whose wealth amounts to 250,000 euro.

The data for 2013 show that only 8.4% of the world's population is controlling 83.3% of the world's wealth whereas 3.2 billion people, or 68.7%, of people in the world are managing only 3%, or 7.3 trillion dollars of it. It is expected that global wealth will increase by 40% over the next five years and it will amount to 334 trillion dollars in 2018. The leaders in this process will be the emerging economies, especially China.

 

The research conducted by Wealth-X also forecasts an 85% increase in the number of billionaires, i.e. from 2,198 today they will number 4,076, the increase in China, 214%, and Brazil, 157%, being the most significant.

According to experts, millionaires and billionaires invest their capital in the following assets:

real estate – 22%

shares – 15%

corporate bonds – 15%

They hold available 13% of the money. Their investments in government bonds reach 8%, in foreign currencies, 7%, in gold, 6%, in venture capital, 5%, in commercial products, 5% and in the so-called "investments of passion", 4%.

The last category is particularly important, as it shows that, the richest people on the planet do not only profit from their investment, but also satisfy their interests through the collections they are creating and expanding. Thus, from the beginning of 2013, their investments in arts have reported profits of 13% (compared with 19% in 2012), the investments in the production of expensive watches, 14%, in classic cars, 11%, in luxury jewellery, 11%, and in expensive wines, 8%. Conversely, the investments in sports teams have reported an 8% loss.

The data show that the old world, namely that of the developed Western economies, is gradually starting to fade. The number of rich people on the planet will continue to increase but at a faster rate in developing economies, which have benefited the least from wealth, although they comprise 60% of the world population.

Guru of the US bank Goldman Sachs Jim O'Neill who, in 2001 created the notorious acronym BRICs to denote the largest emerging markets, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China, has recently launched the new and less familiar MISTs, which includes Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey. O'Neill believes that the emerging markets will continue to be the main driver of global growth until 2020.

Tags: EconomyBillionairesMillionairesInvestmentsGlobal wealth
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