Hong Kong’s billionaire class shrinks the most as trade war wrought havoc on global markets, wiping out worldwide fortunes

Hong Kong’s class of US dollar billionaires lost US$56 billion last year, or 17.5 per cent of their combined fortunes, as the US-China trade war wrought havoc on global markets and commerce.

The number of billionaires declined to 87 in Hong Kong last year, with their combined wealth shrinking to US$259 billion, according to the 2019 survey by Wealth-X, which specialises in researching ultra high net worth individuals, or people with at least US$30 million (HK$235 million) in assets.

Asian stock markets were among the world’s top losers last year, with 15 major indexes in the region losing by at least 10 per cent each. That destroyed wealth everywhere, decimating the combined fortunes of the world’s billionaires by 7 per cent to US$8.6 trillion, while their population shrank to 2,604, the second decline since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

Across the Asia-Pacific, the billionaire population declined by 13.4 per cent, with its combined wealth down by 8.7 per cent, with substantial falls in billionaire populations in China, India and Singapore. China’s billionaire population dropped 15.7 per cent in 2018. The total number of Asian billionaires, 677, fell back below North America at 750. The combined wealth of Asian billionaires declined by 8.5 per cent.