SA has lost a fifth of its billionaires in the past 10 years

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Jimmy Moyaha: There was a gentleman named Andrew Amoyles whose insights I very much enjoyed reading and whose report I had been keeping an eye on for quite some time. He is Head of Research at his New World Wealth, in collaboration with Henley & Partners. He joined me to discuss his latest Brics report published by New World Wealth. This is just the latest in a series of highly insightful reports originating from Andrew's inbox or email. I encourage everyone to subscribe if they can.

Good evening, Andrew. Thank you for your time. Latest reports suggest South Africa has lost a fifth of its billionaires in the past decade. If you look at some of the lifestyles in South Africa, I think this is pretty shocking, so let's get back to that.

Let's start with the fact that a new report suggests there is $45 trillion in investable assets in the Brics area.

Andrew Amoyles: yes. I'm happy to be on your show again. I'm glad to hear your opinion. that's right. We have published the 'Brics Wealth Report' in collaboration with Henley & Partners. The report can be found on his website for Henley & Partners and is the first of its kind.

We focused on Brics countries, including new entrant countries. Argentina did not participate, leaving a total of 10 countries. And yes, as you mentioned, there are $45 trillion in investable assets. This only includes assets held by listed companies, cash holdings, and debt-free residential real estate. That is a type of liquid asset.

We then looked at the number of US dollar millionaires in each country with investable liquid assets.

As you mentioned, South Africa has seen a decline in US dollar millionaires over the past decade. The main reason is that the rand has depreciated by about 45% against the dollar over the past decade.

The luxury housing market has also fallen by about 20% in dollar terms. In South Africa, prices have increased by about 50% in rand terms, but have fallen in dollar terms. And JSE is actually down. The JSE All-Share Index has declined by approximately 5% in dollar terms over the past 10 years. Although it has increased by about 70% in rand terms, it has fallen in dollar terms.

There was also an outflow of wealth, with some wealthy people leaving the country.

In effect, these are kind of a contributing factor to why the number of US dollar millionaires living in South Africa has fallen by 20%.

Jimmy Moyaha: Andrew, even though South Africa is seeing a decline, the report says there are still over 549 cases. [dollar] A billionaire from the brick world. In terms of dollar millionaires, how many of them are from South Africa? Off the top of my head I can think of less than five. Are most of them coming from places like Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates (UAE)?

Andrew Amoyles: yes. In the BRICS, I think he has 549 US dollar billionaires, of which I think his 305 are from China. So most of them are from China and about 120 are from India. I think Saudi Arabia has 22 people. UAE has 20 people.

Russia actually has quite a few billionaires. I think there were about 50 or 60 people. As you said, there are five in South Africa.

it depends. From time to time, we see a list of South African billionaires. [mention] More than five, but it often depends. The list also includes shares held by private companies, so [the compilers] If you look at people who run large private companies, they will try to value those private companies. But we don't do that. Here, we will focus on the holdings of listed companies. So the numbers tend to be a little lower.

But let's also remember that South Africa is full of extremely wealthy South African-born billionaires who no longer live here. All we focus on is the people who live here. So if you look at the billionaires, the US dollar billionaires, who actually live in South Africa, there are only five of them.

Jimmy Moyaha: [Chuckling] I was shocked to learn that 305 of the 549 billionaires are from China. I can't say I was “shocked.” I think that's a pretty meaningful statistic.

Andrew, this report also suggests that billionaires within Brics will increase by 85% over the next 10 years. What predictions in the report do you find interesting?

Andrew Amoyles: yes.The number of wealthy people is expected to increase by approximately 85% [high-net-worth individuals] It's in the brick area.

So [among] Saudi Arabia will likely see a big rise. We have very strong progress predictions there. The United Arab Emirates is also about 100%. China is not expected to grow as rapidly as it has over the past decade, with the number of wealthy people expected to increase by about 80%.

South Africa is expected to grow at a fairly good 60%.

There are also some countries, such as Iran and Russia, whose economic growth projections are quite low. This is because there are many sanctions that must be dealt with. However, it is clearly difficult to know exactly what the situation will be. However, our prediction is that the probability is about 20%. So this equates to about 85% overall, which is better than the global growth rate over the same period, which is expected to be about 50%.

Jimmy Moyaha: Andrew, according to the report, which cities are the richest? I am aware that there are some cities that we have not yet reported on, but they are emerging cities that we hope to see in future reports. It is also considered.

Andrew Amoyles: yes. Wealthiest Cities – We have compiled a list of the 10 richest cities in Brics based on the number of US dollar millionaires in the “Brics Wealth Report”.

And we can also see the number of centimillionaires, who are an interesting group of wealthy people. Over $100 million USD, and clearly a billionaire.

Topping the list are Beijing, Shanghai, Dubai, Mumbai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Delhi, Moscow, Quanzhou and Abu Dhabi. There are no South African cities in the top 10, as five of them are in China.

But we expect good and strong growth from the Cape. We expect this to be one of the biggest increases going forward.

Cape Town currently has just over seven wealthy people, but over the next decade that number is expected to rise to around 15,000, making it one of the fastest growing.

However, at the bottom of the top 10 list is Abu Dhabi, which does not yet make it into the top 10 list as they already have 23,000 wealthy people.

There are some pretty big cities, and obviously Brazilian cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, but they didn't even make it into the top ten. Therefore, there are many large cities that did not make it into the top 10.

Jimmy Moyaha: I wonder how different this report would have been if we had not admitted certain members and new members to the Brics block. But with the admission of new members and the widening of the geographic scope of our members, Andrew, this report looks at liquidity in terms of whether we anticipate expansion of things like visas or relaxation of visas. ? And the increased liquidity among these wealthy individuals within the bloc?

Andrew Amoyles: yes. This report focuses on the power of passports and includes the Henley Passport Index for Brics countries. I can't say much about it because I only write about rich people. Henry & Partners primarily handles passport-related items.

But you're right that it's a big factor and it's also a big factor in creating wealth in terms of mobility. One interesting point I should mention is that even though South Africa has far fewer wealthy people than China, it has over 300,000 wealthy people compared to countries like India, for example, which have over 300,000 wealthy people. There are approximately 37,000 wealthy people. , about 8 times more – We must always remember that India has about 30 times more people than South Africa.

If you look at it that way, South Africa is doing pretty well. Because India has only 8 times as many US dollar millionaires as she does, even though the population is 30 times hers.

And although China has 30 times the total population of South Africa, it has only about 25 times the number of billionaires.

So South Africa is actually in the billionaire category and punches above its weight in a sense due to its small total population.

Jimmy Moyaha: Andrew, you mentioned that a centimillionaire is someone who is worth over $100 million. From that perspective, do you think certain groups are more prevalent, such as millionaires, centimillionaires, and billionaires? Perhaps some groups are growing at a faster rate than others? Do you understand?

Andrew Amoyles: This centimillionaire band has also shown considerable resilience in South Africa. For example, if you look at the past 10 years, the number of million-dollar millionaires has declined by about 20%. However, the centimillionaire band has only fallen by about 7-8%, so it hasn't fallen that much.

Bands above $100 million, or about R2 billion, have become more resilient. I mean, they're very wealthy people.

There are many centimillionaires in South Africa. Currently, as of December last year, a month ago, there were 102 centimillionaires in SA, which is a significant number.

South Africa is not far behind Saudi Arabia in terms of centi as Saudi Arabia has 195. South Africa has a large number of centis.

Compared to many other Brics countries, South Africa only has a fairly low billionaire category [members] – As I said earlier, there are only five billionaires. But there are a lot of Sentis, and quite a lot of wealthy people.

Jimmy Moyaha: Well, I'll leave it at that, Andrew. Very insightful to say the least. South Africa has 102 billionaires worth more than $100 million.

We will look into whether this number will continue to increase in the future when the next report is released.

That's Andrew Amoils, head of research at New World Wealth in the latest inaugural Brics Wealth Report, released today.