100 million dollars in financial assets: around 3,300 people in Germany have at least that much. The number of millionaires is also increasing. The very rich benefit from high-yield investments.
There are more and more super-rich people in Germany. According to an analysis by the management consultancy BCG, the number of people with financial assets of more than 100 million dollars rose by ten percent last year. According to the analysis, there were 3,300 super-rich people in Germany in 2023, up from 3,000 the year before. This puts Germany in third place, behind the USA (26,000) and China (8,300). According to the report, there are 73,000 super-rich people worldwide.
“The report shows that the higher the initial wealth of the individual, the higher the increases were,” wrote the authors. “The more wealth, the stronger the recent increases in Germany.” Very wealthy investors have invested a higher proportion of their assets in the capital market, explained Akin Soysal, BCG partner in Zurich and co-author of the study. “Less wealthy people traditionally rely on lower-risk asset classes such as bank deposits, cash or insurance – at the expense of returns.”
More than 550,000 millionaires
The 3,300 super-rich people in Germany owned almost a quarter of all financial assets, 23 percent to be exact. Financial assets include cash, account balances, bonds, stocks and investment funds, and pensions. Not included are tangible assets such as real estate, precious metals, and other physical investments.
According to this report, the financial assets of the super-rich in Germany amounted to 2.1 trillion dollars (a good 1.9 trillion euros). To illustrate: If the 1.9 trillion euros were distributed among all 84.7 million inhabitants of Germany, each would receive around 23,000 euros. In dollars and based only on financial assets, the number of millionaires in Germany grew by 30,000 to 555,000 last year.
According to BCG, 66.5 million people in Germany had less than $250,000 in financial assets. Inequality is likely to grow: in five years, the super-rich will probably own 26 percent of all financial assets, up from 23 percent today, says BCG. Across Germany, financial assets grew by five percent in 2023, while real assets fell by 2.3 percent, partly due to higher interest rates.
Almost a quarter of a million euros per person in Germany
Meanwhile, the Swiss bank UBS has also published a wealth report. It calculates the average wealth, i.e. financial and material assets, per capita. In 2023, it was around 265,000 dollars (around 245,000 euros) in Germany. That was 17th place in the global ranking. Switzerland was in first place with around 710,000 dollars per person. Overall, assets worldwide increased by 4.2 percent.
Source: Stern
