There are now almost 1 million Canadians with US$1 million in wealth, according to a new report from Credit Suisse AG’s Research Institute.
The report says that Canada added 46,000 new millionaires (those with US$1 million in assets, defined as financial and real assets, minus debt) over the past 12 months, pushing the total to 993,000 (data to mid-2013). Canada accounts for 3% of the top 1% of global wealth holders, despite having only 0.5% of the world’s population, the report says.
Measured in U.S. dollars, household wealth in Canada grew at an annual rate of 6.7% between 2000 and mid–2013, it says; although discounting exchange rate effects, the rise in wealth is actually 3.7% per annum, it notes. The report adds that Canada has lower wealth per adult than the U.S., and that the gap grew last year from 9% to 17%, “reflecting both US dollar appreciation and better stock market performance in the U.S.”
However, that wealth is more equally distributed, so Canada has much higher median wealth, sitting at US$90,300 in Canada compared to US$44,900 for the U.S. Relative to the U.S., Canada has both a smaller percentage of people with less than US$10,000 and a larger percentage with wealth above US$100,000, it says.
Overall, global household wealth increased 4.9% to US$241 trillion over the past year. In North America, household wealth gained US$8.4 trillion, an increase of 11.9%, powered by a recovery in house prices and U.S. equity markets. Europe added US$5.5 trillion, which was an increase of 7.7%. Yet, household wealth in Japan dropped 20.5%, due to a 22% depreciation of the yen against the U.S. dollar during the period, which dragged down total wealth in the Asia Pacific region by 3.7% to US$73.9 trillion. Excluding Japan, Asia enjoyed wealth growth of 6.2% to US$51.3 trillion in mid-2013.
The report forecasts that wealth will rise by nearly 39% in the next five years, reaching US$334 trillion by 2018. And, it sees emerging markets increasing their share of global wealth to 23% over that period. And, the number of millionaires worldwide is expected to increase by about 16 million, reaching 47 million, in 2018.
“Our research shows that global wealth has doubled since 2000, quite compelling given some of the economic challenges of the last decade. We expect this trend to continue in the foreseeable future, driven largely by emerging markets’ strong economic growth and rising population levels,” said Credit Suisse Research Institute’s Michael O’Sullivan.
Credit Suisse also estimates that there are 98,700 ultra high net worth (UHNW) individuals worldwide (those with net assets exceeding US$50 million). Of these, 33,900 are worth at least US$100 million, and 3,100 have assets above US$500 million, it says. North America accounts for almost half of these UHNW people, 25% are in Europe, and 22% are based in Asia.