Johannesburg and Cape Town feature on a new global rich list of the world’s top 40 cities significant to multimillionaires in 2015, reported City Press on Sunday.
The survey chronicles where the world’s megawealthy congregate, work and play – and put Joburg in 28th place, followed closely by Cape Town in 36th place.
The big-wealth trend is rocketing growth in Asia – with four of the top 10 world cities in this region, and with Hong Kong and Singapore continuing to slug it out for number one spot among the Asian tigers.
The Knight Frank’s 2015 Wealth Report analyses wealth distribution trends in more than 100 countries, focusing specifically on ultrawealthy individuals – persons with investable assets of at least $30m (R353m).
An estimated 5 200 individuals joined this exclusive bracket in the past year, totalling 172 850 in the world.
Europe held on to its top spot with 60 565 such superaffluent individuals, followed by North America with 44 922 and Asia with 42 272.
Notably, Asia overtook North America as the region with the second-largest ultrawealthy individual growth rate.
Africa comes in last, with 1 932.
Joburg houses 298 and Cape Town 115. Lagos is home to 131.
The Ivory Coast and then Nigeria are singled out for most likely ultrawealthy individual growth on the African continent.
All in all, the report says 2014 was a good year for the world’s megawealthy.
You might wonder what keeps the world’s rich awake at night?
Family succession issues, it would appear. About 85% of respondents said their clients were concerned about the handover of family wealth to the next generation.
A potential increase in wealth taxes and increased government scrutiny of wealth were the second and third most vexatious issues, according to the survey.
According to the Knight Frank’s 2015 Wealth Report, the megawealthy are in:
1. London
2. New York
3. Hong Kong
4. Singapore
5. Shanghai
6. Miami
7. Paris
8. Dubai
9. Beijing
10. Zurich
28. Johannesburg
36. Cape Town
Biénne Huisman, City Press
