Last year, Beijing was the city with the most billionaires in the world. Now there is a new number one. New York City has regained its crown.
With 107 billionaire residents, total assets worth more than $640 billion, The Big Apple is home to more triple-comma club members than any other city on the planet. A wealth of wealth — and troubles in Asian markets over the past year — helped end Beijing’s brief reign, which usurped New York as the top billionaire city for the first time in six years. in 2021.
As New York thrives, Beijing and other Chinese cities struggle as the Chinese government puts pressure on industries ranging from e-commerce to after-school tutoring. Only Shanghai rose to one place in the ranking, to fifth. Beijing fell to second, Shenzhen fell to sixth and Hangzhou fell out of the top 10 from 10th. 2021. The Chinese cities on this Top 10 list have lost a total of 29 billionaires and about $375.6 billion in assets since last year. Still, China still has more cities in the top 10 than any other country, beating even the United States, which comes in second with New York and San Francisco.
No city has seen a bigger drop than Moscow, which fell from 4th place in terms of dollar billionaires in 2021 to 7th place this year. Harsh international sanctions and market closures mean that 34 Russians will be removed from the 2022 World Billionaires List; about three-quarters of them live in Moscow. The joint wealth of billionaires living in the Russian capital is now $214.9 billion, down from $420.6 billion last year. Just a decade ago, Moscow topped the list of cities with the most billionaires residing.
Despite the variation in rankings, the cities where billionaires choose to live are largely the same. The only new place on this year’s list is the South Korean capital, Seoul, replacing Hangzhou in 10th place. Of the 2,668 billionaires on this year’s billionaires list, nearly a quarter of them just live. in 10 places.
Here are the 10 cities in the world with the most billionaires, data as of March 11, 2022
1. New York: 107 billionaires
- Since last year: +8
- Total net worth: $640.4 billion (+ $79.9 billion compared to 2021)
- Richest resident: Michael Bloomberg, $82 billion
New York added eight new billionaire residents in the past year, more than any other city on the list. Most are active in the financial industry, including Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner and private equity giant Ramzi Musallam. NYC’s other newcomers include the first NFT billionaires identified by Forbes: Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah, co-founders of popular blockchain startup OpenSea. Despite increasing competition, media mogul Michael Bloomberg remains the richest resident, accounting for about 13% of the city’s total billionaire wealth.
2. Beijing: 83 billionaires
- Since last year: -17
- Total net worth: 310 billion USD (- 174.3 billion USD compared to 2021)
- Richest resident: Zhang Yiming, $50 billion
Increased government scrutiny has opened up a world of pain for the super-rich in the Chinese capital, who have shed $174.3 billion from their collective net worth since 2012. 2021. The 17 missing billionaires include Kate Wang, founder of Chinese computing giant RLX Technology, and Will Wei Cheng, CEO of ride-hailing company Didi Global, whose fortune falls below three comma threshold. The rare winner amid the turmoil is Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, the owner of TikTok and the richest resident of Beijing, who is $14.4 billion richer than last year.
3. Hong Kong: 68 billionaires
- Since last year: -12
- Total net worth: $304.6 billion (- $143.8 billion compared to 2021)
- Richest resident: Lee Shau Kee, $32.6 billion
Another city where rates have fallen dramatically, Hong Kong has lost dozens of people amid a year of market volatility and strict Covid-19 curfews. The stagnant tourism industry has knocked casino billionaires Ina Chan and Lawrence Ho, as well as hotel tycoon Zhao Tongtong, from the ranks of the city’s super-rich. Hong Kong also lost two billionaires, Shing-bor Tang and Lee Man Tat, who died in 2021.
4. London: 66 billionaires
- Since last year: +3
- Total net worth: $324.1 billion (+ $8 billion compared to 2021)
- Richest resident: Len Blavatnik, $32.5 billion
London rose to fourth place when it eased longstanding pandemic restrictions. Although the city’s billionaire population has only grown by three, the city actually welcomes six new three-comma club members, including the first Bulgarian and Estonian citizens ever to be named billionaires by Forbes. rich, all with their main homes in London. Vlad Yatsenko, chief technology officer of digital banking giant Revolut, and Denis Sverdlow, founder of British e-car maker Arrival, are other new billionaires living in London.
5. Shanghai: 61 billionaires
- Since last year: -3
- Total net worth: $187 billion (- $72.6 billion compared to 2021)
- Richest resident: Liu Yongxing, $13.2 billion
Shanghai has lost fewer billionaires than other Chinese cities, but the proportion of super-rich residents has steadily declined, from 64 to 61. Xu Yi and Chen Rui, chief executives of Chinese media giant Bilibili and Tony Zhao, CEO of video and media platform Agora, are among the Shanghai-based billionaires relegated to millionaires. Going against the trend, Shanghai’s richest man, Liu Yongxing, chairman of the agricultural and chemical company East Hope Group, has doubled his fortune to an estimated $13.2 billion.
6. Shenzhen: 59 billionaires
- Since last year: -9
- Total net worth: USD 286.6 billion (- USD 128.7 billion compared to 2021)
- Richest resident: Ma Huateng, $37.2 billion
A hub for self-made billionaires, China’s “Silicon Valley” has dropped to sixth place after losing nine resident billionaires in the past year. Three of those are investors in vaping company Smoore International, whose market share plummeted 64% as the Chinese government threatened to crack down on e-cigarettes. Shenzhen’s richest man, Tencent Chairman and CEO Ma Huateng, was also affected. The internet media mogul’s fortune is down more than $28 billion since 2021.
7. Moscow: 53 billionaires
- Since last year: -26
- Total net worth: $214.9 billion (- $205.7 billion compared to 2021)
- Richest resident: Vladimir Lisin, $18.4 billion
Moscow lost more billionaires than any other city on the list amid setbacks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In fact, all but two billionaires living in Russia’s capital have been worse off than they were the previous year. Vladimir Lisin, chairman of steel products manufacturer NLMK Group and Moscow’s richest man, has reduced his personal fortune by about $8 billion. 26 others completely made it off the billionaires list, including Oleg Tinkov, founder of digital bank Tinkoff; sanctioned billionaires are Andrei Molchanov and Dmitry Pumpyanskiy; and Arkady Volozh, founder of Yandex, the equivalent of search engines like Google and Yahoo.
8. Mumbai: 51 billionaires
- Since last year: +3
- Total net worth: $301.3 billion (+ $36.3 billion compared to 2021)
- Richest resident: Mukesh Ambani, $90.7 billion
The Indian capital holds the 8th spot with a net increase of 3 billionaires compared to last year. Balancing with the three eliminated, Mumbai has actually welcomed six new billionaires in the past year, including Falguni Nayar, who has become India’s richest self-made woman, with an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion, after successfully listing her fashion and beauty retailer Nykaa last November. The city’s richest resident, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, alone accounts for more than 30% of the collective net worth of Mumbai’s billionaires.
9. San Francisco: 44 billionaires
- Since last year: -4
- Total net worth: 160.8 billion USD (- 29.2 billion USD compared to 2021)
- Richest Residents: Brian Chesky and Dustin Moskovitz, $11.5 billion
Falling from 8th place, San Francisco is home to four fewer billionaires than last year. The city really welcomes a new group of super-rich entrepreneurs, such as Grammarly co-founder Max Lytvyn; and Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, the 26 and 25-year-old co-founders (respectively) of fintech startup Brex. But the fortunes of others, such as Affirm co-founder Max Levchin, RingCentral Vlad Shmunis and Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise – each of whom fell off the Forbes list – caused the city to suffer a net reduction in the number of billionaires. .
10. Seoul: 38 billionaires
- Since last year: +4
- Total net worth: $108.3 billion (- $13.8 billion compared to 2021)
- Richest residents: Kim Beom-su and Jay Y. Lee, $9.1 billion
South Korea’s capital is back on the list for the first time since 2019. Three of Seoul’s new billionaires (fourth returnee) are all self-made: Covid-19 test entrepreneur Cho Young-sik , founder of fintech startup Lee Seung-Gun and gaming mogul Park Kwan-ho. Rounding out the list of the city’s richest residents are Kim Beom-su, founder of Kako, South Korea’s largest messaging app, and Jay Y. Lee, vice president of Samsung Electronics, each with an estimated worth. $9.1 billion.
Source: Forbes
