Boston Consulting Group's Global Wealth 2009

The Boston Consulting Group has released a report, titled Delivering on the Client Promise: Global Wealth 2009,in which Europe nudges out North America as the richest region.

BCG reports that global wealth fell from $104.7 trillion in 2007, measured in assets under management (AuM) to $92.4 trillion in 2008, a decline of 11.7 percent.

Key points in the report Global Wealth 2009 are:

• Wealth plummeted in North America by 21.8 percent last year, leaving $29.3 trillion in AuM

• Europe was down 5.8 percent from the 2008, with $32.7 trillion in AuM

• Wealth increased in Latin America by 3 percent.

The number of millionaire households worldwide fell from 11 million to about 9 million, a drop of 17.8 percent. The numbers dropped by 22 percent in both North America and Europe, although the U.S. continued to have the greatest number of millionaire households — nearly 4 million.

Singapore had the highest concentration of millionaires, with 8.5 percent of the households owning more than $1 million.

Three of the six densest millionaire populations were in the MIdle East — in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

“Wealth will begin a slow recovery in 2010 but may not reach its precrisis level until 2013,” said Peter Damisch, a BCG partner and a coauthor of the report. “We expect wealth to grow at an average annual rate of about 4 percent from year-end 2008 through 2013.” Wealth will grow fastest in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) at 9.5 percent per year over the same period, he added.