10:03 AM
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Another sign of India’s economic malaise: according to the latest wealth report from Capgemini and RBC, India was the only one of the Bric countries to have fewer dollar millionaires in 2011 than in 2010.
The world’s population of rich people stayed roughly equal at 11m in 2011, according to the report published on Tuesday. But those people’s aggregate investable wealth by asset value slid 1.7 per cent to $42tn.
A rich person – or high net worth individual in the jargon, or even HNWI – is defined by Capgemini as somebody with $1m or more in investable assets excluding primary residence, collectables, consumables and consumer durables (so blow your pile stocking the cellar and you’re off the list).
The main reason for the fall in aggregate wealth was a “disproportionate impact of losses among higher wealth brackets”, where investors are often more likely to invest in less liquid and more risky assets.
Indian millionaires know what the authors are talking about: no less than 18 per cent of the country’s 2010 dollar millionaires lost that status in 2011. That must really grate, especially knowing that the other Brics have weathered the economic storm rather better than other parts of the world (see chart).
Capgemini puts the blame on the poor performance of Indian equities, in which many rich Indians like to invest: