Rags to riches stories are rare; most wealthy people are born that way

Many people are familiar with the notion that the best way to earn a small fortune is to start with a large one. This is rather cynical but what cannot be doubted is that the easiest way to get rich is to inherit wealth.

So, this newspaper’s better healed readers should be delighted with the news that not only are the rich getting richer but also that the overwhelming majority of the super rich have achieved their wealth through inheritance.

The latest findings of the US-based Wealth-X survey, covering 2015-16, were revealed last week. They show that the world’s billionaires (i.e. those with a net worth in excess of US$1 billion) were collectively worth US$7.7 trillion, up 5.4 per cent on the previous year. To put this figure in perspective, the 2,473 billionaires placed in this category by Wealth-X, collectively own a sum amounting to a shade below half the entire gross domestic product of the world’s biggest economy, the United States (US$17 trillion).

The survey also found that the Asia-Pacific region is poised to overtake the US as home to the biggest billionaire population. Last year the region produced four times as many new billionaires as the United States.

By strange coincidence in the week that this report was published one of Britain’s richest men died. The Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish, passed away leaving an estate valued at around £9 billion.

This fortune originated with the wealth acquired by Sir Thomas Grosvenor in the 17th century. His successors clung onto it with various degrees of success, the recently deceased sixth duke was not exactly known for his business prowess but had the good sense to be surrounded by advisers who knew what to do and diversified the business, which is based on prime property holdings. Even more importantly they fortified the structure that left the company less vulnerable to the whims of the family patriarch after one of the Grosvenors almost succeeded in gambling away the family’s fortune in the 1770s.

The business will now be in the hands of the sixth duke’s son, aged 25; it remains to be seen whether he will follow his father’s example following assumption of the family fortune when he became best known for driving fast cars and crashing them before knuckling down to his responsibilities.