$145t Future of Investing Is Heading Toward Asia

Every other day, a new billionaire is minted in Asia. That growing wealth has sparked a shift in the world of investing, as ascendant emerging markets outpace the long-dominant US and Europe.

Global assets under management are estimated to almost double to $145.4 trillion by 2025, with the fastest growth in the Asia-Pacific, PricewaterhouseCoopers data shows, Bloomberg reported.

The forecast for a 145% surge in the region is more than twice the expected increases in North America and Europe.

All eyes are now on China after the government said in November that it would open the country’s asset management industry to foreigners. They will chase assets that are expected to jump more than five-fold by 2030, according to estimates by Casey Quirk by Deloitte.

Chinese pensions, long squirreled away in bank deposits and bonds, have diversified into alternative investments recently as the population ages and retires, according to Miranda Carr, a China macro strategist at Haitong Securities UK.

“You’ve got pension assets growing, individuals investing in more traditional funds and foreign investors trying to get more middle-class and high-net-worth investors in China,” Carr said in an interview.

 More Asians Than Americans

For the first time in history, the largest concentration of billionaires is not in the United States, it is in Asia. There are 637 Asian billionaires. That’s up one quarter over the previous year according to a new report from UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

According to that report, there are 563 billionaires in the US and 342 in Europe. There may be more billionaires overall in Asia, but American billionaires are wealthier. Of course it helps that four of the five richest people in the world are American. Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg certainly help tip that average wealth in favor of the good ol’ USA. The total wealth of American billionaires is about $2.8 trillion.

The big uptick in Asia is due to the rise in self-made billionaires. Roughly 75% of Asia’s new billionaires are from China and India. Not coincidentally, those two countries have the two biggest economies in Asia by far. China added 67 new billionaires, India added 16. Asian billionaires have a combined wealth of $2.4 trillion.

Most of the newly made billionaires from all countries are from the technology industry.

If the number and wealth of Asia’s billionaires continues to rise, it is expected that that group will be wealthier than all of the American billionaires by about 2020. The total wealth of the world’s billionaires was up 17% in 2016 to $6 trillion.

The overall age of the world’s billionaires is 63. The average American billionaires is 67-years-old. Chinese billionaires are on average 55-years-old, though the overall Asian age is 59. Technology billionaires are the youngest billionaires all over the world.

 World’s Top Five

Using the calculations from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, here is a list of the top five richest people in the world. Bloomberg updates its data at the close of every trading day in New York, the list is based on the latest data available for November 30.

Jeff Bezos: Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in the garage of his Seattle home in 1994. The online marketplace went public three years later and has since grown to sell everything from fashion to tech to food and Amazon’s own consumer-electronics products. On November 24, Bezos’s net worth hit $100 billion.

Bill Gates: Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft with his friend Paul Allen, and served as CEO until 2000. He still sits on the company’s board, but is no longer active in the day-to-day dealings. Net worth: $89.4 billion.

Warren Buffett: After getting rejected from Harvard Business School, Warren Buffett went to Columbia instead where he studied under Benjamin Graham, who would become his mentor. He later bought Berkshire Hathaway in 1969 and transformed it into a powerhouse holding company. Net worth: $81.7 billion.

Amancio Ortego: Amancio Ortego controls fashion giant Inditex, which owns Zara, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, and others. At least part of his success can be attributed to Zara’s fast-fashion business model. Net worth: $75.9 billion.

Mark Zuckerberg: Mark Zuckerberg launched TheFacebook.com when he was a sophomore in college before dropping out to work on the site full-time. Net worth: $72.3 billion.