WORLD'S SECOND-RICHEST: Mexican mogul Carlos Slim remains richest in Latin America and is now second-richest worldwide. (Photo: CarlosSlim.com)
GROWING FORTUNE: Brazilian oil and mining mogul Eike Batista is now Latin America's 8th-richest man. (Photo: TSX, Canada)
FALLING FORTUNE: GOL CEO Constantino de Oliveira Júnior is no longer among Latin America's billionaires, according to Forbes. (Photo: Rio de Janeiro Congress)
The number of millionaires is growing in Latin America. And like their billionaire counterparts, their fortune is also growing.
BY CHRONICLE STAFF
Producers of private jets, yachts, high-end automobiles and other luxury collectibles love Latin America. After all, that's the region where local millionaires spend most on these items compared to wealthy in other parts of the world, according to the latest World Wealth Report from CapGemini and Merrill Lynch.
"Private jets, yachts, high-end automobiles and other luxury collectibles again accounted for [high net worth individuals'] largest investments of passion, with wealthy Latin Americans at the forefront of this trend," says the report, which was released last week.
Latin America's wealthy also are among the most avid buyers of fine art. While only 11 percent of North America's wealthy spend their money on fine art, 21 percent of Latin America's wealthy do so. That is also more than what their counterparts in Asia and the Middle East spend and only lags slightly behind Europe.
MORE WEALTHY, MORE WEALTH
And the good news for luxury companies is that the number of wealthy individuals is growing in Latin America. There were 417,000 high net worth individuals (HNWI's) in the region last year, an increase of 12.4 percent from 2006. CapGemini and Merrill Lynch define a HNWI as an individual with more than $1 million in financial assets excluding collectibles, consumables, consumer durables and primary residences. Even better, their combined fortune has grown by 20.4 percent to $6.2 trillion.
The report's data confirms the trend among Latin America's wealthiest - the region's billionaires - which are also seeing a strong increase in their fortune, according to a Latin Business Chronicle analysis of recent data from Forbes magazine.
HP: Strong Latin Growth