WORLD ADDS 412 BILLIONAIRES！

WORLD ADDS 412 BILLIONAIRES – 8 BILLIONAIRES A WEEK - TO TAKE TOTAL RECORD TO 3,228 BILLIONAIRES.

ELON MUSK OF TESLA ADDS RECORD US$151BN TO BECOME RICHEST MAN IN WORLD FOR FIRST TIME, WITH US$197BN.

CHINA PULLS AWAY FROM USA, LEADING WITH 1058 BILLIONAIRES, UP 259, COMPARED WITH USA WITH 696 BILLIONAIRES, UP 70. CHINA AND USA MAKE UP OVER HALF OF ’KNOWN’ BILLIONAIRES IN THE WORLD.

INDIA THIRD WITH 177, UP 40. GERMANY, UK AND SWITZERLAND FOLLOW WITH 100+ EACH.

JEFF BEZOS, LAST YEAR‘S RICHEST MAN, SECOND WITH US$189BN, DESPITE ADDING US$49BN.

BERNARD ARNAULT, BILL GATES, AND MARK ZUCKERBERG IN THIRD, FOURTH, AND FIFTH PLACES WITH US$114BN, US$110BN, AND US$101BN. RECORD FIVE INDIVIDUALS CROSS US$100BN MARK.

LUXURY SURGE. BERTRAND PUECH OF HERMES ADDS US$25BN TO US$80BN, MAKING THIS FIRST TIME TWO FROM THE LUXURY INDUSTRY IN TOP 10, THE OTHER BEING BERNARD ARNAULT OF LVMH WITH US$114BN.

CALIFORNIA-BASED AUSTIN RUSSEL, AT 25YRS, OF CAR SENSOR MAKER LUMINAR TECHNOLOGIES YOUNGEST SELF-MADE BILLIONAIRE WITH US$3.5BN, FOLLOWED BY UK-BASED BENJAMIN FRANCIS (US$1.1BN) OF GYMSHARK, HK-BASED SAM BANKMAN-FRIED (US$10BN) OF BLOCKCHAIN PLATFORM FTX, AS WELL AS ANDY FANG (US$2.8BN) AND STANLEY TANG (US$2.8BN) OF US FOOD DELIVERY PLATFORM DOORDASH, ALL 28YRS.

BEIJING IS WORLD‘S BILLIONAIRE CAPITAL FOR THE 6TH YEAR RUNNING WITH 145 BILLIONAIRES LIVING THERE. NEW YORK SLIPS TO THIRD PLACE, AFTER SHANGHAI ADDED 30 BILLIONAIRES TO 113. SIX OF TOP 10 CITIES WITH HIGHEST CONCENTRATION OF BILLIONAIRES ARE NOW IN CHINA.

CORONOVIRUS DROVE UP BILLIONAIRES FROM HEALTHCARE AND RETAIL FASTEST. SPECIFIC WINNERS WERE ELECTRIC VEHICLES AND ECOMMERCE.

ZHONG SHANSHAN, 67, OF BOTTLE WATER MAKER NONGFU WAS THE BIGGEST NEW FACE, SHOOTING STRAIGHT INTO THE TOP 10 WITH US$85BN AND ASIA’S NUMBER ONE SLOT.

TIKTOK FOUNDER ZHANG YIMING, 38, ADDS US$40BN TO BREAK INTO TOP 30 WITH US$60BN

FAST RISERS. HUANG ZHENG, 41, OF ECOMMERCE PLATFORM PINDUODUO ADDS US$51BN TO BREAK INTO TOP 20 WITH US$69BN. BRIAN ARMSTRONG, 38, OF CRYPTO EXCHANGE COINBASE ADDS US$10BN TO BREAK INTO TOP 200 WITH US$11.5BN.

CALIFORNIA-BASED ERIC YUAN ZHENG, 51, OF ZOOM CONTINUED TO DEFY GRAVITY, WITH WEALTH RISING FOUR-FOLD TO US$19BN.

BRIAN CHESKY, 39, OF AIRBNB, SAW HIS WEALTH REBOUND, TRIPLING TO US$14.5BN

LEADING AUTHORITY ON GLOBAL WEALTH RELEASES 10TH HURUN GLOBAL RICH LIST.

Top Ten - Hurun Global Rich List 2021

3 new faces in the Top 10: Elon Musk, Zhong Shanshan, and Bertrand Puech. The Top 10 added US$169bn over the year and are now worth US$1.1 trillion or 7.5% of the total list. 6 are from the USA, 2 from France and 2 from the emerging economies of China and India. The Top 10 grew their wealth over 50% on average.

Elon Musk, 49,has become the world's richest person, adding US$151bn over the last year, which works out at just under a billion dollars every two days, to take him to US$197bn. The bulk of his wealth is from his 21% share of Tesla, which is worth just under US$800bn. SpaceX, in which Musk has a 52% share, added US$13bn in value in the past year, after becoming the first private company to put people into orbit, an achievement previously claimed by just three global superpowers. Musk has not been far from the headlines all year, most recently last month, when he announced a US$1.5bn investment from Tesla into bitcoin. Other projects that have gained attention include the Boring Company which has been digging tunnels to operate high-speed rail service around the Las Vegas Convention Center and Neuralink, which aims to create a working brain to machine interface. Curiously, in 2013, Musk almost sold Tesla to Google for US$11bn.

‘Luxury King’ Bernard Arnault, 71, of LVMH dropped down to one place to third withUS$114bn.At the outset of the outbreak, Arnault was down US$25bn but has since bounced back to end the year with 7% more than last year. The biggest news for Arnault this year was the successful takeover of US luxury brand Tiffany for US$16bn in December, with his son Alexandre Arnault taking a senior leadership position there.

Bill Gates,65, was fourth with US$110bn, up 4%. Gates made the headlines in March last year after resigning as a director of Microsoft, to focus on his philanthropy. Gates has become the largest farmland owner in the USA with holdings of 242,000 acres of land. The Gates Foundation donated US$250mn towards Covid relief.

Mark Zuckerberg, 36,who became a billionaire at the age of 23, broke through the US$100bn mark for the first time to keep a Top 5 place with his wealth up 20%. Facebook today has 2.8 billion registered users, up 12%, despite facing growing anti-trust headwinds from the US government. Zuckerberg continued to make headlines this past year, first for changing the privacy policy of WhatsApp that allows Facebook to share its extensive data and second with the decision to block news content in Australia.

Warren Buffett, 90, of Berkshire Hathaway, hung on to a Top 10 spot, withUS$91bn, despite losing US$11bn last year, more than any other billionaire on the list.Berkshire Hathaway’s most substantial investments are in Apple and Bank of America, totalling over US$90bn, and in the past year bought Dominion Energy Natural Gas assets in a US$10bn deal.

Mumbai-basedMukesh Ambani, 63,saw his wealth up 24% toUS$83bn, on the back of a surge in the value of energy and telecom giant Reliance. India's largest exporter, Reliance accounts for 8% of the country’s exports and 5% of India's total revenues from customs and excise duty. Reliance is planning a calculated shift to renewable energy and has decided to venture into the battery-making business ahead of the electric vehicle boom.

Steve Ballmer, 64,kept a Top 10 place with a 19% increase in his wealth toUS$80bn, on the back of Microsoft’s share price surge. The owner of NBA team Los Angeles Clippers, Ballmer has donated US$2bn towards helping lift Americans out of poverty.

Bertrand Puech & family, 84, of French luxury giant Hermes, broke into the Top 10 for the first time, after a 45% increase in his wealth toUS$80bn. The fifth-generation descendant of founder Thierry Hermès, Puech and family own 67% of Hermès.

Table - Comparisons with the Top 10 Five Years and Ten Years ago

In the last decade, the Number One’s wealth has gone up four-fold, and doubled over five years. Only five of those in the Top 10 five and ten years ago are still there today.

Where they live

China has pulled away big time from the USA in the past year, adding 259 to 1058 to become the first country in the world to top 1000 ‘known’ dollar billionaires. The USA is second with 696 billionaires, up 70. Between the ‘Big Two’, China and the USA have 54% of the ‘known’ billionaires on the planet. India added 40 to solidify its third place, followed by Germany, the UK, and Switzerland, each with more than 100 ‘known’ billionaires.

Beijing is the billionaire capital of the world with 145 billionaires living there. Shanghai overtook New York to second place, with 113 billionaires. Shenzhen added 30 billionaires to overtook its neighbour Hong Kong and London for fourth place. Six of the Top 10 cities with the most billionaires were in China.

Source of Wealth by Industry – Hurun Global Rich List 2021

Healthcare was the fastest riser of the year. Healthcare and Real Estate were the main source of wealth for the world’s billionaires, followed by Consumer Goods, Investments, Retail and F&B.

Comparison of China vs USA billionaires.2016 was the year that China overtook the USA in terms of billionaires.

TABLE: Billionaires by Continents

By Continent.Asia pulled away from North America and Europe, both in terms of new additions and total wealth.

Asia, with 60% of the world’s population, accounted for 45%, up from 39% last year, of the US$14.6tn total wealth of the Hurun Global Rich List and 51% of the billionaires. For new faces, Asia contributed 63%, followed by Europe with 14.5% and North America with 14.3%.

Africahas 18 billionaires, led byAliko Dangote,62, of Dangote Cements.

Stock Markets and Currencies

It has been a good year for the stock markets generally. Nasdaq led the way, up 42.1%, followed by Shenzhen up 40.7%, India’s BSE Sensex up 23.4%, Japan’s Nikkei Index up 22.9%, Shanghai’s SSE Composite Index up 19.8%, MOEX Russia up 13.2%, and Hang Seng Index up 8.6%. The worst performer was the UK, which saw the FTSE100 Index down 12%. Australia’s ASX 200 was down 4%.

The US dollar depreciated 14% against the Australian Dollar, 9% against the Euro, and 7% against the Chinese Yuan, as well as 3% against both the British Pound and Singapore Dollar. Currencies that depreciated against the US dollar include Indian Rupee (down 2%), Swiss Franc (down 8%), and Russian Rouble (down 16%), as well as the Brazilian Lira (down 21%) and Argentina Peso (down 42%).

Stats

The cut-off required to break into the Top 1000 was up 17%. The cut-off to the Top 10 was at record levels, US$80bn, 122% higher than five years ago.

TABLE: Stats– Number of Billionaires through the Years

Every year other than 2019 has produced a new record of billionaires in the last decade, and this year has been no exception. 2021 has produced the record number of billionaires, overtaking the previous record set two years ago, and 90% more than 2013.

In terms of the ‘nine-zero club’, those with US$10bn or more, this has tripled from 83 ten years ago to 257 this year.

Largest Market Capitalizations of companies founded by billionaires from theHurun Global Rich List 2021.Microsoft overtook Amazon to become the largest company by market cap. Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance were the only non-USA companies that makes the Top 10.

Self-made degrees:Hurun Research’s bespoke measure of the degree to which billionaires are inherited or self-made. The scorecard is out of five, where 1 is inherited and not active in business, and 5 is self-made without help from parents. Hoogewerf said, “Many billionaires like to portray themselves as self-made, but have actually inherited significant wealth from their parents.”

71% are self-made and 29% are inherited. China is the world’s engine when it comes to self-made billionaires.