25th Year for Forbes Billionaire List Shows Exciting Figures

Consider the past 25 years of market expansion for the large yacht market, we have seen our fleet more than double and the size of yachts explode to some mammoth proportions, with 180m-plus projects now in build. The simple reason can be extrapolated from the arrival of brand new figures released by Forbes on their much referenced Billionaire List. When the list was first published in 1987, they had generated a list of 140 billionaires from around the world, at that time big yachts were still measured in feet and 50m yachts were scarce. Today we have seen an increase of wealth and billionaire numbers that are unprecedented, with total combined wealth reaching 4.6 trillion dollars, up a paltry 2%, but remember that’s a significant growth in itself, with 92 billion dollars of increased wealth. We can anticipate that as the billionaire wealth has increased, so has the mid tier UHNW values too and we can feel confident as an industry that our clients and potential clients are still worth considerable sums.

Yes, there are casualties of the list and people have lost wealth and been dropped from the ranks, but the exciting information is the number of new additions, some 128 new billionaires, especially when you consider the age of the newcomers. With many being sub 50 years old, which again bodes well for our long term future. In fact, Columbian  Alejandro Santo Domingo, who is 35 years old, is the richest new billionaire with $9.9 billion, inherited from his late father.




Having spoken to yacht designers, lawyers and shipyards at the upper end of the spectrum of our market, it is clear that the world’s wealthy are seeing yachts as the next asset purchase, with several significant new build contracts signed or to be signed. In fact, a recent conversation with a major lawyer added that a large percentage of the new build contracts he was seeing were from brand new clients. With an increase in billionaire figures and a surge of activity with the premium brand yards, it all points to a relatively healthy future. I am not sure the list of billionaires will grow at the same rate as the past 25 years, but we can surely expect growth as the new markets expand and current billionaires suggest that moving up the ranks is on their agenda. Let's see what the future holds, but it is fair to say that the next five years will be interesting and it is easy to see that there are many more potential owners who we need to convince that we have the ultimate escape route, in superyachting.

View the full list at Forbes here.

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