Such a lot of money – and at such a young age! The world is used to talk of how wealth is shifting from its redoubt in the US and Europe to Asia, and in particular to the Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Time was when the US was the only country that had more than 100 billionaires. Now, according to a study by Forbes Insights and Société Générale of where the world’s richest people live, it has been joined by Russia and China.
That is not the only startling new development. The average age of China’s 115 billionaires and Russia’s 101 is, respectively, 50 and 49. That makes them a decade younger than the next youngest cohort, from India, and a quarter-century younger than the oldest cohort, from France. (The average age of US billionaires is 66.)
Optimists would cite the rise of Chinese and Russian billionaires, and their relative youth, as evidence of the spread of wealth around the world and of the growing clout of these economies. Pessimists – of whom there appear to be ever fewer – might need more convincing.