Billionaires' Wealth Falls for First Time Since 2015

Date: 08 November 2019 - 21:49

News ID: ۷۲۴۳۷

ZURICH (Reuters) – The world’s richest people became a little less well off last year, according to a report by UBS and PwC, as geopolitical turmoil and volatile equity markets reduced the wealth of billionaires for the first time since 2015.
Billionaires’ wealth fell by 4.3% globally to $8.5 trillion last year, the UBS/PwC report found, with a sharp decline in Greater China, including Hong Kong, and the Asia-Pacific region more broadly.
Private wealth in Hong Kong fell 4% in 2018 to $319.8 billion, the report showed, with months of anti-government protests in the Chinese-ruled city and an economic recession clouding the outlook this year.
Some Hong Kong tycoons have begun moving personal wealth offshore, Reuters reported in June, as concerns deepen over the protests.
"We haven’t seen any significant outflows, we have been tracking some of these numbers on a regular basis,” said Amy Lo, UBS co-head of Asia Pacific wealth management. "Our clients have been diversifying all along, it’s not in the last one year.”