The World’s Wealthiest
Family Gets $4 Million Richer Every Hour
The 25 wealthiest
dynasties on the planet control $1.4 trillion
August 10, 2019
The numbers are
mind-boggling: $70,000 per minute, $4 million per hour, $100 million per day.
That’s how quickly the
fortune of the Waltons, the clan behind Walmart Inc., has been growing since
last year’s Bloomberg ranking of the world’s richest families.
At that rate, their wealth
would’ve expanded about $23,000 since you began reading this. A new Walmart
associate in the U.S. would’ve made about 6 cents in that time, on the way to an
$11 hourly minimum.
Even in this era of extreme
wealth and brutal inequality, the contrast is jarring. The heirs of Sam Walton,
Walmart’s notoriously frugal founder, are amassing wealth on a
near-unprecedented scale — and they’re hardly alone.
The Walton fortune has
swelled by $39 billion, to $191 billion, since topping the June 2018 ranking of
the world’s richest families.
Other American dynasties
are close behind in terms of the assets they’ve accrued. The Mars family, of
candy fame, added $37 billion, bringing its fortune to $127 billion. The Kochs,
the industrialists-cum-political-power-players, tacked on $26 billion, to $125
billion.
So it goes around the
globe. America’s richest 0.1% today control more wealth than at any time since
1929, but their counterparts in Asia and Europe are gaining too. Worldwide, the
25 richest families now control almost $1.4 trillion in wealth, up 24% from
last year.
To some critics, such
figures are evidence that capitalism needs fixing. Inequality has become an
explosive political issue, from Paris to Seattle to Hong Kong. But how to
shrink the growing gap between the rich and the poor?
As the tension increases,
even some billionaire heirs are backing steps such as wealth taxes.
“If we don’t do something
like this, what are we doing, just hoarding this wealth in a country that’s
falling apart at the seams?” Liesel Pritzker Simmons, whose family ranks 17th
on the Bloomberg list, said in June. “That’s not the America we want to live
in.”
A notable addition this
year: the Saudi royal family.
The House of Saud is worth
$100 billion, based on the cumulative payouts royal family members are
estimated to have received over the past 50 years from the Royal Diwan, the
executive office of the king.
That’s a lowball figure.
After all, oil giant Saudi Aramco, the linchpin of the Saudi economy, is the
world’s most profitable company. The kingdom is hoping to take it public at a
$2 trillion valuations.
Tallying dynastic dollars
isn’t an exact science. Fortunes backed by decades and sometimes centuries of
assets and dividends can obfuscate the true extent of a family’s holdings. The
net worth of the Rothschilds or Rockefellers, for instance, is too diffuse to
value. Clans whose wealth is currently unverifiable are also absent.
But of those we can track,
most are reaping the rewards of ultra-low interest rates, tax cuts,
deregulation, and innovation. Koch Industries, for instance, has a
venture-capital arm. The latest generation of Waltons is establishing its
own enterprises.
Other big gainers include
the owners of the fashion house Chanel and Italy’s Ferrero family, whose brands
include Nutella spread and Tic Tac mints. In India, the fortune of the Ambani
family swelled $7 billion, to $50 billion.
In all, the world’s 25
richest families have $250 billion more wealth, compared to last year.
The rich aren’t necessarily
getting richer together. The Quandt family dropped eight places following a
poor year for Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, which has battled trade tensions and
slowing global markets as BMW invests in the disruptive shift to
self-driving electric vehicles. The Dassault, Duncan, Lee and Hearst families
all fell from the list.
And this could in many ways
represent a peak, as U.S. President Donald Trump escalates trade war with
China and worries grow about a global recession.
“It can be very challenging
to preserve wealth over the long-term,” said Rebecca Gooch, research director
at Campden Wealth, a network and education business for generational-wealth
holders. “Family-owned operating businesses can shift from booming to
declining, a family’s investment portfolio might not be well-diversified or
there can be issues with generational transitions.”
Walmart is the world's largest retailer by revenue,
with sales of $514 billion from more than 11,000 stores worldwide. Family
holding company Walton Enterprises owns half the retailer, a stake that’s the
foundation of the world's biggest fortune.
$190.5bn
Frank Mars learned to hand-dip chocolates as a
schoolboy. The business he went on to establish is best known for M&Ms and
Milky Way and Mars bars, though pet-care products make up about half of the
company's more than $35 billion in revenue. The closely-held business is owned
by members of the Mars family.
$126.5bn
Brothers Frederick, Charles, David, and William
inherited father Fred’s oil firm. A fraternal feud over control of the company
in the early 1980s led Frederick and William to leave the family business while
Charles and David stayed; they have since grown it into Koch Industries, a
conglomerate with annual revenue of about $110 billion. David and Charles
manage a portion of their wealth through a family office, 1888 Management.
$124.5bn
The 87-year-old monarchy after which Saudi Arabia is
named can credit the nation's unrivaled oil reserves for seeding its collective
fortune. This net worth estimate is based on cumulative payouts royal family
members are calculated to have received over the past 50 years from the Royal
Diwan, the executive office of the king. The total wealth controlled by its
estimated 15,000 extended members is likely much higher. Many royals have made
money through brokering government contracts and land deals and by founding
businesses that service state companies, such as Saudi Aramco. Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, son of Saudi's seventh monarch, King Salman, personally
controls assets worth more than $1 billion.
$100bn
Brothers Alain and Gerard Wertheimer are reaping the
benefits of their grandfather's funding of designer Coco Chanel in 1920s Paris.
The siblings own the closely held fashion house, which introduced the
"little black dress" to the world and had revenue of $11 billion in
2018. The Wertheimers also own racehorses and vineyards.
$57.6bn
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