Wealth of billionaires rises to $10.2 trillion amid coronavirus crisis
- 4 years ago
The wealth of the world's billionaires has reached a new high amid the coronavirus crisis according to a latest report by Swiss bank a report by UBS.
The report found that billionaires did ''extremely well'' as a rally in stock prices and gains in technology and healthcare helped the wealth of the world's richest break the $10 trillion mark.
It covered over 2,000 billionaires representing some 98 per cent of the cohort's total wealth. The report states billionaire wealth grew by more than a quarter during the early months of the pandemic to reach $10.2 trillion in July, breaking the previous record of $8.9 trillion at the end of 2019.
According to the UBS and PwC database, 25 years ago billionaire wealth stood at just over $1 trillion, but there has been five- to ten-fold rise over the period of time.
Between April 7 and July 31 this year, billionaires across every industry covered by the study saw their wealth rise by double digits, with billionaires in the technology, healthcare and industrial sectors leading the pack with 36 per cent to 44 per cent gains.
The pandemic accelerated a trend of technology and healthcare entrepreneurs, and other business innovators, pulling ahead of their ultra-rich peers.
From 2018 through July 2020, tech billionaires saw their wealth rise 42.5 per cent to $1.8 trillion, the report found, while billionaires deriving their fortune from healthcare similarly saw their wealth rise 50.3 per cent during the period to $658.6 billion.
Just over 200 of those billionaires publicly committed some $7.2 billion to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, the study found, noting that billionaire donations to combat the medical crisis as well as the societal and economic turmoil it caused were likely actually higher.
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