Inheriting is more lucrative for new billionaires than working themselves. Federal Council wants to sell Beyond Gravity

Last year, 137 people around the world joined the exclusive circle of billionaires. Her total assets are $291.5 billion. Most of these new billionaires made their own money, but for the first time the amount of money they inherited exceeded the wealth they earned themselves.

$150.8 billion was handed over to 53 heirs, who can now count themselves among the billionaires. The 84 new self-made billionaires have a total wealth of $140.7 billion. This means that for the first time since the survey began in 2015, the super-rich have acquired more wealth through inheritance than through entrepreneurship, according to the “UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report 2023” published on Thursday.

This suggests that “the great transfer of wealth” is gaining momentum. And “a new cohort of multi-generational families is emerging in which each generation has its own ideas about its heritage and aspirations,” the study said.

The authors also estimate that more than 1,000 modern-day billionaires will pass on assets worth more than $5.2 trillion to their heirs over the next 20 to 30 years. To arrive at this estimate, the study authors added up the wealth of the 1,023 billionaires who are currently 70 years or older.

“In the longer term, the extraordinary wealth resulting from the boom in entrepreneurial activity since the 1990s has laid a foundation for future generations of billionaire families,” the report says.

IPOs create billionaires

Of the self-made billionaires, i.e. those of the first generation, two-thirds have ended up in the circle of the super-rich thanks to the organic growth of their companies. One in five has also crossed the billion dollar mark thanks to an IPO, and in the Asia-Pacific region one in three has crossed the billion dollar mark.

Another major “gateway to the billionaire universe” was mergers and acquisitions. Although these occurred only rarely, they proved to be “particularly revolutionary,” according to the study.

In other words, they let business owners make the biggest leap in wealth. Entrepreneurs who became billionaires this way had an average fortune of $4.2 billion. Those who built their wealth through organic business growth “only” over 1.4 billion.

Post-pandemic recovery

According to the report, some entrepreneurs returned to the group of billionaires after losing their assets during Corona. In particular, the assets of European retailers and consumer goods manufacturers have partially recovered, after falling by almost a fifth in the previous year.

All in all, the number of billionaires worldwide increased by 7 percent to 2,544. Their total assets rose by 9 percent to 12 trillion francs. According to the “Balance Sheet” list of the richest Swiss, which was published a few days ago, there are about 150 billionaires or families in this country with assets of more than 1 billion francs. (saw/sda/awp)