SINGAPORE: A recent report showed that Singapore is the only city in Southeast Asia in the top 10 cities with “centi-millionaires,” individuals with at least US$100 million (S$139 million) in assets.
The Henley & Partners report, published on Tuesday (Sept 17), showed that Singapore has 336 such high-net-worth individuals. If you’re curious about how many centi-millionaires there are across the globe, the answer is 29,350.
Cities in the United States took the top three spots: New York (744 centi-millionaires), The Bay Area (675 centi-millionaires), and Los Angeles (496 centi-millionaires).
London (370 centi-millionaires) and Beijing (347 centi-millionaires) round out the top five.
The report also said that New York, Los Angeles, and Beijing are expected to have a moderate wealth growth of 50 to 100 per cent from 2024 to 2040, and London is expected to have low wealth growth (less than 50 per cent) in the same period.
Singapore, however, is expected to have high wealth growth (100 to 150 per cent) in the coming decade and a half. Hong Kong, which takes eighth place, is similarly expected to have high wealth growth.
Incidentally, Dubai, ranked 15th on the list, is expected to have very high wealth growth of over 150 per cent for this time period.
Singapore’s high number of centi-millionaires can be a good thing for the city-state, according to an article on Fortune.com.
The report from Henley & Partners quotes Andrew Amoils, New World Wealth’s head of research, as saying that businesses started by centi-millionaires have a “significant spillover effect on the middle-class” due to the significant number of jobs that pay well that are created.
Fortune also pointed out that while the forecast for many Asian cities, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Taipei, is positive, this is not the case for European cities.
“The optimistic forecast for Asian cities contrasts against that of European cities. The centi-millionaire population in London, once considered a financial capital of the world, is forecast to have a growth rate of less than 50 per cent over a 16-year period.
Moscow, Zurich, and Madrid are forecast to have similar lacklustre growth rates as well.
The top 10 centi-millionaire cities only have two European cities: London and Paris.”
In May, Henley & Partners ranked Singapore as the fourth wealthiest city in the world, climbing up one spot from 2023’s rankings. Singapore has 244,800 millionaires, 336 centi-millionaires, and 30 billionaires, a whopping 64 per cent increase in millionaires from 2013 to 2023. /TISG
Read also: Hong Kong’s millionaires have decreased by 4%, while Singapore’s increase by 64%