By Arno Maierbrugger
Gulf Times Correspondent
Bangkok
This is the decade of the Asian billionaires: Business tycoons in East Asia led by China saw the fastest increase in their wealth this year, according to a new study by Wealth-X, a Singapore-based research firm focusing on ultra-high net worth individuals, and Swiss bank UBS which publishes the UBS billionaires Census.
The combined wealth of Asia’s billionaires (ex-Middle East) grew 18.7% to $1.41tn compared to last year, the report said. Fifty-two new dollar billionaires joined the club, almost two thirds of them hailing from China. Altogether, the region now has 560 billionaires, most of which made their money from real estate investments, industrial conglomerates and – as of late – from Internet ventures as it could be witnessed at the spectacular initial public offering of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group on September 19 which created a new bunch of ultra-wealthy people within the blink of an eye.
Although Europe and North America are still leading in total number of billionaires – with 775 and 609, respectively –, Asia recorded the fastest growth in wealth worldwide, accounting for 30% of net increase in global billionaires wealth in 2014. While Asia’s number of billionaires grew 10.2%, the number of Middle East billionaires shrunk by 1.9%, the study revealed, but the overall wealth of the latter grew by 16.1%.
While wealth in the Middle East is to some extent based on family fortunes and inheritance, Asian billionaires’ money derives mainly from entrepreneurial ventures and from their own business activities. Only 13% of Asia’s super-rich have inherited their wealth, the study says, and they are also the youngest billionaires worldwide at an average age of 61 – compared to a global average of 63 years.
Alibaba’s IPO last week has also reshuffled the billionaires’ ranking in Asia: Mainland China’s richest person is now undisputedly Alibaba founder Jack Ma with a fortune of $25.4bn, closing up to Hong Kong tycoon and Asia’s richest man Li Ka-shing with $31bn and surpassing entertainment magnate Lui Che Woo ($22bn) and real estate tycoon Lee Shau-kee ($19.6bn).
The Alibaba IPO has also made Softbank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son Japan’s richest man who has now a fortune of $16.6bn, surpassing retail magnate Tadashi Yanai with $16.2bn.
Apart from China, Hong Kong and Japan, most of the other billionaires in Asia can be found in India (Mukesh Ambani, oil and gas tycoon, $18.6bn, and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, $16.7bn) and in Singapore (the city state’s richest are real estate tycoons Robert and Philip Ng with a shared fortune of $12.8bn).
The top ten list of the highest billionaire numbers per country in Asia continues with Taiwan (richest person: food and beverage tycoon Tsai Eng-Meng, $9.6bn), South Korea (Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee, $12.9bn), Indonesia (R Budi Hartono, banking and tobacco, $7.6bn), Thailand (Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, beverages and property, $9bn) and the Philippines (Industry tycoon Henry Sy, $12.9bn).
The richest person in the Middle East remains Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud with a current net worth of $20.4bn, followed by Saudi oil and property tycoon Mohammad Hussein al-Amoudi ($15.3bn) and Egypt’s construction magnate Nassef Sawiris ($6.7bn).
