The world’s exclusive club of billionaires lost money last year for the first time in nearly five years, according to a new report, but count more U.S. members among the superrich.
In 2018, billionaires’ wealth dropped globally by 4.3%, falling by $388 billion to $8.5 trillion, according to the Friday report from UBS and PwC. The last time the uber-rich saw their wealth decline was in 2015.
“The billionaire boom of the past five years has now undergone a natural correction,” said Josef Stadler, UBS’s head of ultra-high net worth clients, in a statement. “The stronger dollar, combined with greater uncertainty in equity markets amidst a tough geopolitical environment, has created the conditions for this dip.”
Wealth in the Asia-Pacific region suffered the steepest decline, with the net number of billionaires in Greater China falling by 7.4% and private wealth in Hong Kong decreasing 4% to $319.8 billion, the report from UBS and PwC found.
Tech entrepreneurs in the United States, such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, however, boosted private wealth in the Americas. By the end of 2018, the U.S. boasted 89 tech billionaires, up from 70 in 2017 — 19 of the 21 new billionaires in North America. Billionaire wealth in the Americas saw a 0.1% increase of $4.4 billion, bringing the total wealth to $3.6 trillion.
Wealth among tech billionaires overall rose last 3.4% last year to $1.3 trillion.
In 2018, 589 people joined the billionaires club, raising the population of the superrich worldwide to 2,101. Women, meanwhile, are “joining the ranks of billionaires in greater numbers,” according to the UBS and PwC report. Over the last five years, the number of female billionaires rose by 46%, from 160 to 233.
