The wealth of high net worth individuals (HNWIs), people with net financial assets of at least US$1 million, excluding their primary residence and consumables, climbed to US$33.3 trillion in 2005, an 8.5% increase over 2004, according to the 10th Anniversary Edition of the World Wealth Report, which was released today by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.

The report found that the number of HNWIs grew by 6.5% over 2004, to 8.7 million, and that the number of Ultra-HNWIs – those who have financial assets of more than US$30 million – grew by 10.2%, to 85,400 in 2005.

For the first time in three years, the U.S. HNWI population failed to exceed the previous year’s gains, growing 6.8% in 2005 as compared to 9.9% in 2004.

Canada’s HNWI population grew by 7.2%. The two nations’ combined HNWI population increased by 6.9% in 2005, compared to 9.8% in 2004. Despite this slowdown, North America remained home to the largest number of HNWIs and continued to have the largest amount of accumulated HNWI wealth in the world.

“Real GDP growth and market capitalization were the two main drivers of wealth creation, making 2005 a year of robust but decelerating growth for some regions following two consecutive years of strong global performance,” said Robert McCann, vice chairman and president of Merrill Lynch’s global private client group.

“One area where HNWIs found significant opportunity was in the Asia Pacific region, where the twin drivers of market capitalization and GDP continued to deliver high rates of growth in 2005. Meanwhile, Latin America and the Middle East also exhibited strong growth, which benefited HNWIs investing domestically and from other parts of the world.” McCann said.

Despite the strong financial performance of overseas markets, the the report found that investment portfolios of U.S. HNWIs are more domestically focused than those of their peers in other countries.

The report also found that HNWIs were more aggressive in allocating their assets last year than in 2004, though they remained well diversified to maximize investment protection.

HNWIs increased investments in equities and alternative vehicles and, anticipating higher bond rates in the future, shifted funds from fixed-income. Globally, funds allocated to private equity rose, while hedge funds – which have seen steady declines in returns in the last two years – lost favor among HNWIs.

Though it remains the world’s most popular region for investment, HNWIs continue to shift investments away from North America. In 2004, HNWIs showed a decided lack of confidence in the U.S. dollar and reduced their North American investments accordingly. Even though the dollar bounced back somewhat in 2005, investors trimmed their North American allocations because of low returns.

Meanwhile, the Asia Pacific region passed Europe to become the second most popular region for international investment. Globally, Asia Pacific investments represented 23% of the total assets held by the world’s HNWIs last year.

Though outpaced by the Asia Pacific region last year, Europe retained 22% of HNWIs’ worldwide assets. Strong performance by Europe’s mature capital markets, coupled with strong advances in its emerging markets, persuaded local HNWIs to increase their allocation to domestic markets to 48%, up from 40% in 2004.

Report research suggests that HNWIs will continue to transfer assets away from mature markets and into emerging markets for the foreseeable future.

It is also expected that their investments in North America and Europe will continue to decline over the next few years as HNWIs reallocate funds to Asia Pacific and Latin America.