A recent report revealed the billionaires’ wealth rose to over $10 trillion in April to July.
While many businesses struggled in the pandemic, the total amount of the fortune of billionaires rose to a record high. Swiss bank UBS and accounting firm PwC reported that total wealth held by billionaires climbed to over $10 trillion.
The Billionaires Got Richer
The new report, released on October 7, and titled ‘Riding the Storm,’ discovered that the fortune of the billionaires rose by over a quarter, particularly, 27.5 percent. Also, the number of billionaires increased to 2,189. That is 31 more than in 2017.
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The boost in billionaires’ fortune happened between April and July, amid the start of economic uncertainty. Billionaires from almost every market grew their wealth by double digits. Particularly, sectors involved in technology, health care, and industrial saw a hike of wealth around 36 percent and 44 percent.
According to UBS, the figure reached a new high,” even beating the previous record of $8.9 trillion in 2017. Moreover, the bank said that the billionaires still bet on the global market at the time of its lowest point when governments imposed lockdowns and restrictions back in April.
The report covered over 2,000 billionaires from 43 markets globally, UBS and PwC said. It accounts for 98 percent of the overall billionaire fortune.
Stakes Amid Low Points
The head of the bank’s global office family department, Josef Stadler, said that billionaires benefitted when the global market struggled. Stadler said that the rich had the guts to buy more stakes while equity markets tumbled worldwide. And since then, stock markets have recovered.
“Industrials benefited disproportionately as markets priced in a significant economic recovery,” the report reads.
In addition, technology companies also performed well in the pandemic. Mostly, the billionaires own shares from those firms. According to the report, the health crisis induced the demand for tech goods and services. Per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, founder and chief exec of tech behemoth Amazon, Jeff Bezos, remains at the top of the list of the wealthiest person on the planet. Following Bezos include people connected to other tech firms like Tesla and Facebook.
The Billionaire’s Club
Furthermore, the report also noted that more billionaires now pledged to give away part of their fortune. It also said that over 200 billionaires have promised to give money at the time of crisis in the previous months. “It’s early days, but billionaires may well be at a turning point,” the report noted. The billionaires addressed several environmental and social problems that arose in the health crisis and recent natural disasters, the report further said.