The FINANCIAL — Faced with troublesome industry trends that will likely lead to lower growth and profitability over the next five years, wealth managers need to take action on numerous fronts if they hope to maintain the momentum they achieved in 2012, according to a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
“The global wealth-management industry has become increasingly complex,” said Brent Beardsley, a coauthor of the report and the global leader of BCG’s asset and wealth management segment. “With the mature economies of the ‘old world’ and the developing economies of the ‘new world’ moving at different speeds, wealth managers in different regions are grappling with tough sets of problems. Diverse strategies will be required to succeed on either side of the divide,” Beardsley added.
According to the report, global private financial wealth grew by 7.8 percent in 2012 to a total of $135.5 trillion. The rise was stronger than in either 2011 or 2010, when global wealth grew by 3.6 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively, according tothe Boston Consulting Group.
Wealth increased measurably in the old-world regions of North America (7.8 percent), Western Europe (5.2 percent), and Japan (2.4 percent), mainly owing to the sharp rebound in equity markets in most countries, particularly in the second half of the year. Meanwhile, new wealth creation fueled stronger, double-digit growth in the new-world regions of Asia-Pacific ex Japan (13.8 percent), Eastern Europe (13.2 percent), and Latin America (10.5 percent). Wealth in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) saw near-double-digit growth (9.1 percent). New-world regions will account for nearly 70 percent of the growth in global private wealth over the next five years, according to the Boston Consulting Group.
The total number of millionaire households reached 13.8 million globally in 2012, or 0.9 percent of all households. The U.S. had the largest number of millionaire households (5.9 million), followed by Japan (1.5 million) and China (1.3 million). China should surpass Japan in 2013.
The highest density of millionaires was in Qatar, where 143 out of every 1,000 households have private wealth of at least $1 million, followed by Switzerland (116), Kuwait (115), Hong Kong (94), and Singapore (82). The U.S. had the largest number of billionaires in 2012, but the highest density of billionaire households was in Hong Kong (15.1 per million), followed by Switzerland (9.4 per million).
Offshore wealth, defined as assets booked in a country where the investor has no legal residence or tax domicile, rose by 6.1 percent in 2012 to $8.5 trillion. Despite this increase, stronger growth in onshore wealth led to a slight decline—to 6.3 percent from 6.4 percent, compared with 2011—in offshore wealth’s share of global private wealth. While offshore wealth is projected to rise modestly over the next five years, reaching $11.2 trillion by the end of 2017, wealth is increasingly moving onshore due to the intense pressure that tax authorities are exerting on offshore centers.
“Regardless of their home market or principal region of activity, wealth managers globally still have much in common,” said Daniel Kessler, a coauthor of the report and the global leader of the wealth management topic for BCG. “All must find ways to gather new assets, generate new revenues, manage costs, maximize IT capability, comply with regulators, and find winning investment solutions that lead to deep and long-standing client relationships. The battle to maintain the momentum they have achieved, amid a very complex industry landscape, will continue to intensify,” Kessler added.
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