Billion-dollar baby: Singapore is the world’s 10th biggest city for billionaire births, reveals study

Guess the world’s top city for breeding billionaires.

The country has long been attractive to foreign high net worth-individuals (HNWIs). But the island also boasts of homegrown ultra-wealthy citizens: a study released today revealed that Singapore is one of the world’s ten ‘billionaire factories’, so-called for the relatively large number of billionaire births in one city.

According to Spear’s and WealthInsight, Singapore is second only to Hong Kong for the most Asian billionaire births, and is the tenth biggest city for billionaire births globally alongside Taipei in Taiwan.

"Quality of life and education in Singapore have both rocketed in recent years, suggesting that, as neighbouring economies prosper, Singapore will see many more homegrown entrepreneurs,” said WealthInsight Analyst Oliver Williams.

Singapore has produced a total of eight of the world’s current billionaires. The top city for breeding billionaires is New York with an impressive 52 billionaires, followed by Moscow in second (22 billionaires) and London in third (21 billionaires). Hong Kong comes in fourth with 17 billionaires. The cities of Istanbul (5), Paris (5), Chicago (7), Los Angeles (8), Rio de Janeiro (8), Singapore (10) and Taipei (10) make up the remainder of the top 10.

“Only two of Singapore's eight born billionaires made their money in the industry which the country is becoming best known for: finance. The others found more practical ways of making their fortunes: transport and logistics, real estate and hotels. Given its current emphasis on future-facing industries, perhaps science and technology will soon contribute their native billionaires too,” concluded Spear’s editor Josh Spero.