South Africa still has most wealthy households in Africa
Johannesburg - Mozambique is expected to add dollar millionaires at the fastest rate in Africa over the next decade followed by Ivory Coast and Zambia as a mix of construction, financial services and property developments boost the ranks of the rich on the world’s poorest continent.
The number of people with net assets, excluding their primary residence, of more than $1m will surge 120% in Mozambique by 2024 to 2 200, Johannesburg-based research company New World Wealth predicted.
The number of millionaires in Ivory Coast will jump 109% to 4 800 while those in Zambia will double, the company forecast.
“High net worth individual numbers are expected to rise by 45% over the next 10 years, reaching approximately 234 000,” New World said in its latest wealth report.
Mozambique’s economy is being boosted by the biggest natural gas find in the world in the last decade, Ivory Coast is recovering from a civil war and Zambia’s rich are expected to benefit from real estate development. The countries will take over from oil producers Angola and Ghana, where the number of millionaires rose more than fivefold between 2000 and 2014, according to New World.
Over that period the number of millionaires in Africa rose 145% compared with a global average of 73%.
Asset managers
While South Africa, with 46 800 millionaires, and Egypt, with 20 200, remain Africa’s biggest wealth centres, growth in the numbers of the rich has been held back by emigration from a stuttering economy in South Africa and instability in Egypt.
Still, South Africa is expected to remain home to most of the continent’s wealthy, with their numbers rising 40% in the next decade to 65 700.
About $120bn in African wealth is overseen by asset management companies with Investec holding the biggest market share followed by Rand Merchant Bank and UBS, New World said.
The African private banking market is forecast by the research company to grow 8% per annum over the next decade.
Janice Kew - www.fin24.com
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