Canada has world's fastest-growing population of super-rich

Canada is becoming a playground for the rich as the country has seen the fastest increase in its super-rich population of any major country in the world, a new study has found.

Md Asiuzzaman Roving Correspondent, Torontobdnews24.com
Published : 4 March 2017, 08:57 PM
Updated : 4 March 2017, 11:02 PM

Commercial real estate agency Knight Frank’s latest Wealth Report also found that Vancouver is adding super-rich residents at the fastest pace of any major city worldwide.

Canada saw a 15 percent spike in the number of “ultra high net worth individuals” (UHNWIs) nationwide between 2015 and 2016, the report found, according to the local media.

“Only the island of Mauritius saw a faster pace of growth than Canada, though its population of 50 super-rich individuals can fluctuate greatly from year to year.”

Meanwhile, according to a Forbes magazine survey, Canada stands at no.10 with 33 billionaires with its next door neighbour the USA is far ahead at no. 1 with 540 billionaires. China is at no.2 with 251 while India is at no.4 with 84 billionaires.

The net worth of 33 Canadian billionaires is $112.4b with David Thompson identified as the richest individual in the country with a fortune worth $23.8b. 

In 2016, Canada had 4,110 UHNWIs, up from 3,570 in 2015. Knight Frank defines these people as having a net worth of US$30 million or more.

“Two factors can cause the population of the super-rich to grow so quickly: Increases in local households’ wealth, and wealthy immigrants,” the report added.

The report says Canadian households’ net worth rose to $10.2 trillion in the third quarter of 2016, a 7.7 percent increase in the space of just one year.

“That sort of wealth increase can certainly bump some people into the ultra-high-net-worth category. But evidence suggests millionaire migrants are playing a role as well.”

Meanwhile, a report from New World Wealth, released last month, found Canada is the third-most popular destination for wealthy migrants, behind Australia and the US.

“Inflows to Canada were boosted by large-scale immigration from China into Vancouver,” said New World Wealth analyst Andrew Amoils, the HuffPost Canada reported.

“There were also significant HNWI inflows from Europe into Toronto and Montreal.”

Though Vancouver saw a stunning 23 percent increase of super-rich between 2015 and 2016, it started to decline. With sales in city’s housing market has fallen by around 40 percent, it may be that the influx of wealthy migrants into Vancouver has slowed at this point.

Toronto tied for fourth place among cities with the fastest-growing super-rich population.