India has emerged as one of the leading investment destinations for billionaires worldwide, according to the UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report 2022.
The report is based on surveys, questions and information from the UBS Evidence Lab on more than 2,500 billionaires in 75 markets.
According to the report, billionaires want to put more of their money into India because of the region’s strong economic growth.
Among sectors, billionaires favor energy, perhaps because of today’s supply constraints and the accelerating secular transition to renewables. In the report, 58 percent of billionaires surveyed chose India and Southeast Asia as markets for investment. Only 42 percent of respondents chose China.
Unlike the rest of the world, India’s billionaire population has boomed as it has overtaken the UK to become the fifth largest economy in 2022. With a young workforce, India has also overtaken China as the fastest growing of the world’s major economies. At the same time, the number of Indian billionaires rose from 140 last year to 166, and their aggregate wealth rose 25.7 percent to $749.8 billion.
The “UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report 2022” released earlier this month said “North America, with its huge domestic market and vibrant business culture, also remains a popular region. While mainland China is still ahead of the rest of the world, it lags somewhat behind in these regions. .” Few people seem interested in investing in Western Europe, despite it being an important economic bloc.
Not only in investments, China experienced a decline a year ago. The ranks of billionaires also fell. Mainland China’s zero-covid policy has slowed growth after many years as the world’s fastest-growing major economy. There were 540 billionaires, up from 626 a year earlier. After a decade of strong growth, total wealth fell by a fifth (19.9 percent) to $2.0 trillion. However, China is not alone. With falling markets, the population of billionaires around the world has decreased.
As of March 2022, there were 2,688 billionaires worldwide worth US$12.7 trillion, down from 2,755 individuals with US$13.1 trillion in 2021. Asia Pacific was the region with the largest global billionaire population (1,084) with total wealth of $4.2 trillion for comparison. to 1,143 individuals and $4.7 trillion a year ago. The UBS report noted that overall wealth and the number of billionaires are likely to decline further from March due to falling asset prices.
The number of billionaires in the United States, home to about a third of the world’s billionaires, also rose steadily, from 724 in 2021 to 735. Total wealth rose 6.9 percent to $4.7 trillion. Finance and investments had the largest number of billionaires (392 in total) and one of the largest turnovers. Together, their total assets were $1.7 trillion. During the year, 50 new billionaires were created, while 30 fell off the list.
The new billionaires included fintech disruptors, private equity and hedge fund partners. The second most populous sector, technology, has seen significant development. There were 41 new tech billionaires, while 57 disappeared, for a total of 348 worth $2.2 trillion. This volatility shows the dynamism of an industry where barriers to entry are low and innovation is persistent.
Manufacturers have flourished amid extraordinary demand for durable goods and also thanks to the emergence of new entrepreneurs with electric vehicles and batteries. In 2022, there were 338 manufacturing billionaires worth a total of $1.1 trillion, with 44 new billionaires added to the list while 37 dropped from the list. This year’s UBS Billionaires Report revealed that 95 percent of billionaires surveyed believe they should use their wealth or resources to solve global problems.
Two-thirds said it was their ability to “lead the way,” while nearly a third believed they should use their wealth or resources to solve these problems. More than 40 percent of billionaires surveyed see smart agriculture as one of the sectors where they can have the biggest impact, along with clean water and poverty alleviation.
The billionaires surveyed also see opportunities in green energy, as well as waste management and recycling, and believe government has a greater potential role in these areas.” or resources to help address unprecedented environmental and societal challenges,” UBS’s George Athanasopoulos, head of global family and institutional wealth, and Alice Page, head of the Ultra High Net Worth Solutions Group, said in a joint statement.
“The combination of rich long-term capital and innovation has the potential to create huge change and opens up new possibilities for a different approach to investing.” “We remain realistic about the ability of private capital to independently solve the world’s problems. While we see this convergence as a clear trend, it will be done on a sufficient scale to help meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the race? to zero carbon? There are reasons for optimism and those , who can connect billionaires with opportunities around the world, such as UBS, play an important role in this trend.”
From a sector perspective, technology and health continue to attract the interest of the billionaires surveyed, although these sectors have recently seen a decline in valuations and interest in public equity markets.
This is the Swiss bank’s eighth report covering billionaires and focusing on their wealth and ambitions at a time of historic wealth creation, business innovation and impact philanthropy.