A massive transfer of wealth is gaining speed, as billionaires are increasingly padding their vast fortunes with inheritance rather than entrepreneurship, a study by Swiss banking giant UBS Group AG showed yesterday.
Over recent decades, the number of billionaires has ballooned, with surging entrepreneurial activity within tech and other areas ushering fresh members into the super-wealthy club.
However, in its ninth annual report on the world’s billionaires, UBS noted a significant shift in the way such fortunes are being made and expanded.
Photo: Reuters
“The heirs to billionaires are gaining prominence,” UBS Global Wealth Management head of strategic clients Benjamin Cavalli said in the foreword to the report.
“This year’s report found that the majority of billionaires that accumulated wealth last year did so through inheritance as opposed to entrepreneurship,” he said in a statement.
“This is a theme we expect to see more of over the next 20 years, as more than 1,000 billionaires pass an estimated US$5.2 trillion to their children,” he said.
That forecast was based on the estimated accumulated wealth of today’s billionaires who are over the age of 70, UBS said.
“After the surge in entrepreneurial activity witnessed over the past few decades, many business founders are now aging and passing their wealth to the next generation,” the study said.
The study showed 2,544 billionaires in the world by April this year, with their ranks swelling by 7 percent in the preceding year.
After seeing their combined fortunes shrink the previous year, billionaire wealth grew by 9 percent from April last year to April this year to US$12 trillion, it found.
The new billionaires included 53 heirs, whose accumulated inheritance amounted to US$150.8 billion, exceeding the US$140.7 billion joint fortunes of the 84 new self-made billionaires on the list, it said.
UBS attributed this shift in part to a subdued market for initial public offerings through last year and into this year, limiting the opportunities for entrepreneurs to monetize the values of their businesses.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
RSS