The richest people in the world lost 10 trillion dollars in 2022

Last year, the richest people in the world lost a total of $ 10 trillion, a report by consulting group Knight Frank showed. This is the biggest decline since the first Knight Frank report, which was published in 2010. The reason was the coincidence of three crises at once – energy, economic and geopolitical, The Guardian reports.

In their study, analysts included information about 218,000 people classified as "persons with an ultra-high level of equity" (UHNWI).

In total, they lost 10% of their total wealth – from 101.5 trillion dollars in 2021, it fell to 91.4 trillion dollars in 2022.

According to Liam Bailey, head of Knight Frank's research department, after several years of huge profits, the super-rich experienced a "historic shock": "The Ukrainian crisis fueled the energy crisis in Europe and spurred already rapidly growing inflation. As a result, one of the sharpest increases in global interest rates in history occurred in 2022, which led to economic conditions that the Collins English Dictionary aptly dubbed the "permacrisis".

Only four out of 10 UHNWIs, whose net income is at least $30 million, have increased their fortunes. The general trend was negative. At the same time, the cost of residential real estate, investments in commercial real estate, fixed income and "passion investments" like collecting art objects or rare wines fell.

Europeans suffered the most – with an average decline of 17%. They are followed by Oceania with a drop of 11% and North and South America with a drop of 10%. In Africa and Asia, a decrease of 5% and 7% was recorded, respectively.

Nevertheless, the rich are still spending millions on new luxury homes. In London and New York last year, 43 homes were sold for more than $25 million each in both cities. Los Angeles is in third place with 39 sales, followed by Hong Kong (28) and Miami (23).