The number of millionaires in the world rose to 8.7 million last year, half a million more than the population of New York City, according to a report published Tuesday by Capgemini SA and Merrill Lynch & Co.
The number of millionaires has nearly doubled since 1996, though the 6.5 percent growth rate in millionaires last year slowed slightly from 6.6 percent in 2004.
But the ranks of the ultra-rich, those worth more than $30 million, climbed by more than 10 percent last year, to 85,400. Merrill Lynch said the ultra-rich did better because they found “select pockets” of high-growth investments in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
The Middle East saw nearly 10 percent growth in millionaires, the world’s fastest rate, with record oil revenues and soaring stock markets pushing 300,000 people over the $1 million mark.
“This is becoming a very attractive place to invest,” said Mones R. Bazzy, Merrill Lynch’s head of Middle East private banking, based in the boomtown of Dubai.
One factor in the Middle East’s growth in millionaires was stock markets that spiked by more than 100 percent in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last year. Thus far in 2006, those markets have plunged by more than 50 percent, which Bazzy said may have since knocked a few millionaires off the list.
North America held a slight edge over Europe in the population of millionaires, with 2.9 million to Europe’s 2.8 million. Asia counted 2.4 million.
The assets of the world’s millionaires rose 8.5 percent, to $33.3 trillion, larger than the combined gross domestic products of the U.S. and Europe. The number of people with more than $1 million to invest climbed 6.5 percent, the survey found.
