The world’s wealthiest cities have been revealed and more than a third are based in the USA.
The 2022 Henley Global Citizens Report has just been published which contains a list of 20 of the world’s wealthiest cities, six of which are based in America.
New York tops the list with 59 billionaires calling it home and the world’s most expensive real estate which features alongside San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Dallas.
According to the study, NYC is home to 345,600 millionaires including 737 centimillionaires. It also found that private wealth held by New York’s residents exceeds the private wealth held in most major G20 countries at $3TRN.
While New York itself is officially the wealthiest, it is also surrounded by wealth with several commuter towns nearby including Greenwich, Great Neck, Sands Point and Old Westbury harbouring an incredible amount of wealth. If counted in the survey, the figures would exceed a collective 120 billionaires.
Globally speaking, Tokyo, London and Singapore also made an appearance in the top five wealthiest cities and it seems Family Offices support the statistics.
In fact, more than one in four Family Office Leaders ranked New York as the number one jurisdiction for Family Offices as part of our Family Office Survey of the Year.
New York was voted as the top Family Office jurisdiction by 28% of Family Office Leaders followed closely by 24% who voted for Singapore, 19% who claimed it was London and 12% who ranked Geneva as the number one home for Family Offices. Other answers given included Dubai, Hong Kong, Jeddah and Amsterdam.
New York is the home of Family Offices; it is where the term itself was coined by the family of J.P Morgan in 1838 and popularised by the Rockefellers some four decades on. Its high density of investment firms, banks and financial talent have kept it in prime position with Family Office Leaders claiming its high quality of living, physical location and time zone make it both accessible and attractive for trade and opportunity.
New York is also popular it seems with Principals who have a Family Office elsewhere on the map. As part of the same survey, we asked Family Offices where they would open a second office and New York fell in third place with 17% of the vote. As a secondary office location it was beaten only by Singapore and Geneva, both with 20% of the vote and London which was voted the most idyllic location for a second Family Office by 23% of Principals.
London has always followed in the footsteps of New York as a major trading hub and with the British pound at an all-time low, international investors are seizing opportunities.
The Agreus Survey revealed that 29% of Family Offices invested in new geographical regions over the last 12 months with Asia being the most popular investment spot. 50% of Family Offices who invested in new regions over the course of the last year invested in Asia followed by 19% who invested in the Middle East. 18% sought new opportunity in the USA and 13% who did the same in Europe.
Asia has seen phenomenal growth throughout the pandemic with China’s economy growing a record 18.3% in the first quarter of 2021 alone, the biggest jump in GDP since 1992. Chinese billionaires also saw their wealth soar by 41% while Beijing overtook New York as Billionaire Capital and Hong Kong rolled out its red carpet to Family Offices. It is therefore unsurprising that the region has captured the attention of 50% of diversified families and the Middle East in second position is quite easily explained too.
The Middle East is playing a pivotal role in the IPO boom we see so often today and its link to Family Offices is Family owned Business. More of which are pushing to go public and creating Family Offices to manage the liquidity it creates.
Which city would you like to call home?