Asia's ultra rich men get even richer

More than half of Asian individuals with over $100M say net worth rise in 2011.

Results of the Wealth Report Attitudes Survey, a joint study by Knight Frank and Citi Bank reveal interesting statistics on how Asian high net worth individuals view their personal wealth.

According to the report, global HNWI data indicates a shifting emphasis to the East. There are now 18,000 centa-millionaires in the region covering South-East Asia, China and Japan. This is more than North America, which has 17,000, and Western Europe with 14,000.

Here's more from the research:

By 2016, Ledbury Research expects that this region will have extended its lead, with 26,000 centamillionaires (those with over $100m), compared with 21,000 in North America and 15,000 in Western Europe.

On a country-by-country basis, the US will still dominate in 2016, with 17,100 centa-millionaires, but
China will be catching up fast with numbers set to double from current levels to 14,000.
“We believe the number and concentration of centamillionaires accentuates the trajectory of current global wealth flows,” says James Lawson, Director at Ledbury Research. “Trends seen in this wealth bracket are likely to be replicated in lower wealth tiers in years to come.” South-East Asian deca-millionaires (those with $10m or more in assets) already outnumber those in Europe,
and are expected to overtake those in the US in the coming decade.

These forecasts are influenced by the expected economic performance of countries in the Asia-Pacific
region. While rapid GDP growth does not in itself guarantee a sharp rise in HNWIs, rapidly growing
economies do provide key opportunities for large-scale wealth creation.
 

“Individuals can become millionaires or multimillionaires through saving their earnings, a trend most
commonly seen in more developed and established economies. But, apart from those who inherit wealth,
most people who are very wealthy, say with assets of $10m or more, are business owners,” Mr Lawson says.

“To amass this sort of wealth means there must be an alignment between opportunity and ability. For those who make more than $50m, the opportunity usually arises because of a major liquidity event, and these are more common, and can be tapped into more readily, in fast-moving economies.”