“Biggest drop in years”
Germany has fewer millionaires
6/1/2023 at 6:23 p.m
Stock market turbulence and growing global risks are leaving deep scars: the wealth of the richest Germans has dwindled noticeably over the past year. Germany still produces more millionaires than China.
According to experts, the number of dollar millionaires in Germany has fallen significantly in the past year. In 2022, a total of around 1,612,100 wealthy individuals came from Germany, according to data from the French consulting firm Capgemini. That is around 20,900 fewer millionaires than in the previous year.
The assets held by the richest Germans fell by 2.2 percent to the equivalent of around $6.142 trillion. This means that the rich and super-rich from Germany still fare well in an international comparison: Worldwide, the assets in the millionaires’ club fell by a total of 3.6 percent to around 83 trillion dollars.
The reason for the declining wealth was therefore “macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties,” as Capgemini’s current world wealth report puts it. “This is the largest decline in ten years,” said the consulting firm.
Elias Ghanem, head of financial research at Capgemini, sees a clear connection with the development of stock indices. The US index Nasdaq lost 33 percent last year, the French CAC 40 dropped by 9.5 percent and the Dax by twelve percent.
Accordingly, the developments affected the USA much more than the other regions of the world. According to the information, assets in North America fell the most, at 7.4 percent. In Europe it was down 3.2 percent and in Asia and the Pacific it was down 2.7 percent.
In Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, on the other hand, wealth has increased, according to the World Wealth Report. The high oil and gas prices as a result of the Russian attack on Ukraine are decisive here.
The 2022 report puts the number of millionaires worldwide at around 21.7 million people. From the point of view of asset managers, Germany has been one of the most important international markets for years: With a share of seven percent of the total number of all dollar millionaires, Germany is third behind the USA and Japan, ahead of China. In 2021, however, the People’s Republic already had more than 1.5 million dollar millionaires, and the trend is rising.
According to the Capgemini study, a dollar millionaire is someone who has freely disposable assets equivalent to at least one million dollars. Stocks, fixed-income securities, alternative investments, private equity, cash and real estate are also counted, provided they are not used as a residence. Art collections, precious objects of value or consumer goods such as cars are not taken into account.