Thursday, October 26, 2017

The rich


The world’s super-rich holds the greatest concentration of wealth since families like the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts controlled vast fortunes. 

Billionaires increased their combined global wealth by almost a fifth last year to a record $6tn (£4.5tn) – more than twice the GDP of the UK. There are now 1,542 dollar billionaires across the world, after 145 multi-millionaires saw their wealth tick over into nine-zero fortunes last year, according to the UBS / PwC Billionaires report.

Josef Stadler, the lead author of the report and UBS’s head of global ultra high net worth, said “Wealth concentration is as high as in 1905...We are now two years into the peak of the second Gilded Age."

The report found that 140 of the world’s top sports teams are owned by just 109 billionaires, with two-thirds of NBA and NFL teams owned by billionaires. In the UK, nine of the 20 Premier League teams have billionaire owners, including Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, and Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City.

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