It is the time of year when wealth managers traditionally rush to publish reports that analyse the portfolio performance of the ultra-rich over the last 12 months.
No two of these reports are quite the same. Credit Suisse’s 2021 'Global Wealth Report' explores the shifting nature of household wealth, while Capgemini notes that the population of high net-worth (HNW) individuals passed the 20 million mark for the first time last year, even as the world reeled from Covid.
Others were designed with specific events in mind. The World Bank’s ‘Changing wealth of nations’ report, published prior to COP26 in Glasgow, details rising inequality and measures metrics once considered extrinsic to the notion of wealth, such as ‘blue natural capital’ – value embedded in mangroves and wild fishing stocks.
Many of the reports are assembled by Campden Wealth, a family-owned firm that also runs networking events for the privately wealthy.
Its latest 'Asia-Pacific family office' report, published on Wednesday, is co-authored with Raffles Family Office (RFO), a Hong Kong-based multi-family office with bureaus in five Asian cities, including Singapore and Shanghai.
Statistics
The report is fascinating for what it says about a region once seen as risk-averse, but now more optimistic and risk-embracing, and surely more ambitious in the aggregate, than anywhere else on Earth.
First,
