Israel had 7,400 millionaires in 2005, an increase of 12%, and double average. The number of multimillionaires rose 20% last year, compared with a global growth rate of 8.5%, to 84. The aggregate liquid capital of Israel’s wealthy rose 25% last year to $30 billion, according to Merrill Lynch and Capgemini’s World Wealth Report, published today. The report defines a millionaire as someone with more that $1 million in liquid capital, and a multimillionaire as someone with over $30 million in liquid capital.
Since Merrill Lynch and Capgemini began including Israel in its World Wealth Report four years ago, Israel has accumulated 2,400 new millionaires, an increase of almost 50%. The impressive wealth generation in 2005 added three Israelis to the list of the world’s 500 wealthiest people, increasing the number of Israelis in the list to nine. Yitzhak Tshuva, Haim Saban, and the Richter family joined Shari Arison, the Ofer family, the Wertheimer family, Benny Steinmetz, Lev Leviev, and Morris Kahan on the list.
Are are millionaires born? Merrill Lynch Israel VP private banking Ori Goldfarb says the main reasons for the sharp increase in Israeli wealth was the surge in the world’s stock markets, including the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), an increase in foreign activity in Israel, and record mergers and acquisitions and capital raising both domestically and internationally.
However, it turns out that the stock market tail wind is not everything, and Israel’s tycoons leveraged it to make aggressive investments, and increased their investments in higher risk investment channels. “All the developments in the world were felt more strongly in Israel, because of the types of investments and peoples’ character,” said Goldfarb.
The global picture is similar. In a retrospective, the World Wealth Report reveals that the number of millionaires in the world doubled over the past decade to 8.7 million, and their aggregate assets doubled to $33.3 trillion in 2005. There were 6.5% more millionaires in 2005 than in 2004, and the number of multimillionaires rose by 10.2% to 85,400. The aggregate assets of multimillionaires were 8.5% higher in 2005 than in 2004.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on June 20, 2006
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