Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Singapore has highest concentration of millionaires

Singapore has the highest concentrations of millionaires, amounting to 15.5% of the population, followed by Switzerland and Qatar. Is this due to high property prices? Read this article.
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7 comments:

Thomas said...

Doesn't seem so.
From the 3rd para,

Still, wealth in privately held businesses and property wasn’t accounted for in the survey,

June 01, 2011 6:18 PM
Parka said...

An interesting article from Planet Money:

What Does It Mean To Be A Millionaire?

June 01, 2011 6:36 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...

Hi thomas
The exclusion of property applies to China, but it seems that for Singapore, people must be counted - otherwise we can't have so many millionaires!

June 01, 2011 7:00 PM
Serendib said...

Mr Tan, I believe the report excluded property and private business assets across the board - after all, this was a global survey.

you might want to verify this by requesting a copy of the report via this email:
Global.Wealth@bcg.com

This article implies that the standards were the same worldwide:
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-06-02/news/29613070_1_millionaire-households-china-ranks-compound-annual-rate

June 03, 2011 1:47 PM
Serendib said...

Mr Tan,
the metric for evaluating millionaires should be the same for all countries. I suggest you verify by requesting a report from
Global.Wealth@bcg.com

June 03, 2011 1:49 PM
Serendib said...

Hi Mr Tan, sorry for the multiple posts - please feel free to combine into a single post.

I managed to find the BCG press release that defines AuM as below.
It seems that only residences are excluded - investment properties are included? This plus the strong S$ must have helped boost Sg's millionaire households.

http://www.bcg.com/media/PressReleaseDetails.aspx?id=tcm:12-77753

"Global wealth is defined as total assets under management (AuM) across all households. AuM includes cash deposits, money market funds, listed securities held directly or indirectly through managed investments, and onshore and offshore assets. It excludes wealth attributed to investors’ own businesses, residences, or luxury goods. Unless stated otherwise, AuM figures and percentage changes are based on local AuM totals that were converted to U.S. dollars using a constant year-end 2010 exchange rate for all years. This approach excludes the effects of fluctuating exchange rates."

June 03, 2011 1:54 PM
Thomas said...

http://www.lioninvestor.com/millionaires-in-singapore/

'One reason for the increase would be due to the rapid increase in property prices in the past few years. Even though the report excludes residential property, people who dabble in additional properties would have seen a significant rise in their assets.'

It seems that investment property is included as assets.

June 03, 2011 6:07 PM

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