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CNBC WEALTH EDITOR

Everyone’s shopping — billionaires for nationalities, family offices for private companies and the wealthy (a little less) for luxury real estate around the world.

With more than 2,600 billionaires in the world, it’s no wonder that the three comma club is experiencing its own form of rising inequality. Over the past decade, total billionaire wealth more than doubled, from $6 trillion to $14 trillion, according to a new study from UBS. The number of billionaires also soared, from 1,757 to a peak of 2,686 in 2021 (the numbers have since declined slightly, with U.S. gains not quite offsetting China’s losses).

Yet the billionaires at the top are making most of the gains, mirroring the increasingly tech-concentrated stock market. In 2015, the top 100 billionaires controlled 32% of billionaire wealth. Now they control 36%, with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and the other top 10 controlling over $1.2 trillion. Many former bold-faced names like Fred Smith, the FedEx founder with a mere $6.4 billion, have fallen out of the top 500.

Even as they scramble up and down the wealth ladder, billionaires are also moving countries at a record pace. This week, I take a look at the surprising number of billionaires who are packing up and moving overseas. They all have their reasons, of course. But geopolitical crises are the main drivers, along with remote work (and management) and more global families. The billionaire emigres control over $400 billion in wealth, so the moves are also reshaping the investment landscape.

I also look at why family offices are rushing herd-like into the direct deal market — and why they may be taking on more risk than they realize.

I just landed in Miami for Art Basel, so tune in for my live segments today! I’ll have a full wrap-up and highlights from my interviews with big collectors, dealers and CEOs on Monday, in a special edition of Inside Wealth.

Thanks for reading! If you’re in Miami, send me an email or find me at the Convention Center. 

Best, Robert

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Credit: Guvendemir | E+ | Getty Images

Billionaires are moving to other countries in record numbers, seeking personal safety, lower taxes and better health and education systems, according to a new study.

Since 2020, 176 billionaires moved to another country, representing over $400 billion in wealth, according to the UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report. While the wealthy have often moved across borders, billionaire migration has accelerated dramatically since the pandemic as geopolitical conflicts increased and billionaire families became more global.

“Political instability equals relocation,” said John Mathews, head of UBS Private Wealth Management Americas. “They have too much to lose. They have too much at risk. And that’s why you’re seeing this now and why I think you’ll see it accelerate.”

The pace of migration more than doubled in many countries between 2020 and 2024.

The biggest losers were countries grappling with war, sanctions or economic upheaval. Eastern Europe, which includes Russia, lost a net 29 billionaires to migration between 2015 and 2024. Central and South America and Southeast Asia were also net losers.

The biggest gainers were China, which added a net 25 billionaires, Western Europe, with a net increase of 20 billionaires, and North America, which added a net 13 billionaires. Even stable countries that had net gains, however, had large outflows and inflows, revealing an increasingly restless billionaire class.

North America saw 42 billionaires leave, more than offset by 55 arrivals. In Western Europe, 95 billionaires moved out and 115 moved in.

Mathews said many billionaire families have global businesses, as well as homes in multiple countries. Increasingly, they also have family members and children living in different countries or going to school abroad, so there are more reasons to move.

Many move for better work-life balance, or climates or retirement. Mathews said one of the biggest recent drivers is wealth transfers. With the average age of billionaires now in their late 60s, passing down wealth to the next generation has become a priority. Countries with favorable tax regimes and inheritance structures — like Singapore, the United Arab Emirates or Switzerland — have become billionaire magnets. Other countries are racing to catch up to attract more wealth.

“For this population, it’s about friendlier wealth structures to pass wealth from one generation to the next,” Mathews said. “And you’ll see that move around.”

As billionaires age, and grow in number, the ranks of billionaire children and grandchildren is expanding rapidly, creating an ever-larger diaspora of inheritors and next-generation wealthy. In 2015, there were 4,136 children of billionaires in the world. Now, there are over 6,400, with more than 2,700 in North America., according to UBS.

All those inheritors will create massive complexity for bankers, lawyers and accountants working on wealth transfers in different countries. It will also be a multi-trillion-dollar test for whether families can preserve their wealth over generations.

The children and heirs of today’s billionaires, along with favored charities, stand to inherit an estimated $6.3 trillion in the next 15 years, according to the report.

“That’s a lot of people and a lot of money and they are myopically focused on how to preserve it,” Mathews said.

Even as they’re spreading out around the world, however, billionaire investments are flowing to the U.S. Over the next 12 months, 80% of billionaires surveyed prefer North America for their investments. Over the next five years, North American is favored by 68%. They have grown far more pessimistic about Asia, and especially China. Just 11% view China as offering the greatest investment opportunity in the next year.

If there is a common theme with today’s billionaires, it’s seeking safety, with their domicile and their investments. Fully 40% of billionaires surveyed intend to add to their exposure to gold and precious metals over the next 12 months, according to the survey. Nearly a third plan to increase their cash holdings.

While 42% still plan on increasing their developed market equities, they’re also piling into alternatives, especially private equity and private credit. Fully 35% plan to add to their private debt exposure and 38% plan to add to their private equity holdings with direct investments.

When asked about the biggest investment risk over the next year, the largest number said geopolitical conflicts, followed by higher inflation.

“These are smart investors,” Mathews said. “So they are most likely getting ahead of [inflation]. And they’re looking at hard assets and scarcity.”

Family offices doing direct private-equity deals may not be identifying, vetting or overseeing their investments as well as they should, according to a new survey.

Direct deals, when family offices buy stakes in private companies directly rather than through a private equity manager, have become hugely popular with family offices and account for a growing share of their portfolios, according to the 2024 Wharton Family Office Survey.

Yet many are failing to take advantage of their strengths and fall short on their monitoring and deal sourcing. According to the survey, only half of family offices making direct private investments have private equity professionals on staff who are trained to structure and identify the best private deals.

What’s more, only 20% of family offices doing direct deals take a board seat as part of their investment, according to the survey, suggesting they lack forceful oversight and monitoring.

“The jury is still out on whether this strategy will work,” said Raphael “Raffi” Amit, professor of management at The Wharton School, who founded and leads the Wharton Global Family Alliance.

Direct deals have become a favorite investment theme for family offices in recent years. Half of family offices plan direct deals in the next two years, according to a recent survey from Bastiat Partners and Kharis Capital. Many family offices see direct investing as a path to the higher returns traditionally offered by private equity but without the fees, since they are investing on their own. They also can leverage their experience in running a private business, since many family offices were founded by entrepreneurs who built family-owned companies and sold them.

The survey, however, suggests they may not be fully leveraging their experience. Only 12% of family offices surveyed said they invested in other family-owned companies. Amit said the finding may also show that family offices simply see better opportunities in non-family-owned businesses.

Family offices might pride themselves on their patient capital, investing in companies for a decade or more to take advantage of their “illiquidity premium.” When vying for investments in private companies, family offices often stress that they don’t need a fast exit like private equity firms. The majority of family offices surveyed (60%) said their overall time horizon for their investments is longer than a decade.

Yet when it comes to direct deals, their theory appears different from their practice. Nearly a third of family offices surveyed said their time horizon for direct deals is only between three and five years. About half said they invest with a six- or 10-year timeframe, and only 16% said they invest for 10 years or more.

“They’re not taking advantage of the unique aspect of private capital — the more permanent and flexible nature of it,” Amit said.

Family offices are favoring syndicated and “club deals,” where families team up with other families to make an investment or take a back seat to a private equity firm leading the investment. When asked how they find direct deals, most said through their professional network, through their family office networks, or that they’re self-generated, according to the survey.

They also lean toward later-stage investments rather than seed or startup rounds. Fully 60% of the deals were Series B rounds or later, according to the survey.

When making a decision on a company to invest in, family offices emphasize the management team and leadership over the product. Fully 91% said the primary criteria is the quality and experience of the management team.

Amit said that while family offices may well prove successful in their direct deals, the lack of professional staff, the short time horizons and lack of board seats is “puzzling.”

“It will take a number of years to find out if this will be successful,” Amit said. 

Credit: Edwin Tan | E+ | Getty Images

Despite an increase in thefts, a third of wealthy collectors plan to self-insure their newly purchased art, jewelry and other collectibles, according to a new survey.

Theft is the top concern among wealthy collectors surveyed by Chubb, the insurance company, as thieves become increasingly sophisticated in finding and targeting wealthy collectors.

“We have seen an increase in the number of home break-ins that are targeting jewelry,” said Laura Doyle, senior vice president, fine art and valuable collections product leader, Chubb Personal Risk Services.

She said organized crime groups are identifying the most affluent neighborhoods to steal jewelry, watches and cash. They try to find out when the house will be empty — often by “reading about families’ travel plans on social media.”

Despite the risks, about a third of wealthy collectors surveyed said they plan to self-insure their new acquisitions. Chubb advised collectors, whether they are insured or not, to install a home safe that weighs at least 750 pounds and has a TRTL-30 rating.

“We’ve seen very heavy safes weighing 500 or 600 pounds ripped off their bolts and dragged across the floor,” Doyle said.

 For fine-art collections in areas with flooding, fires or severe weather, she recommends collectors get access to a specialized warehouse where works can be moved and safely stored.

She also recommends “individual asset alarms,” or small alarms that can be attached to the back of a painting or the surface of a jewelry safe.

Dubai. Credit: Fadel Senna | Afp | Getty Images

After a strong first half of the year, luxury real estate sales fell worldwide in the third quarter, driven in part by U.S. election uncertainty, according to a new study.

Sales of properties priced at $10 million dropped 17% in the quarter for the 12 global “super-prime” markets tracked by Knight Frank, the London-based real estate brokerage. The total dollar volume of sales fell to $7.4 billion from $8.6 billion a year ago.

One of the weakest markets was Dubai, which has seen a surge in wealthy new residents from Russia, Venezuela, India, China and the U.K. Prime real estate sales in Dubai plunged roughly 45% in the third quarter over last year, suggesting Dubai’s growth may be slowing.

“Dubai is transitioning into a phase of more sustainable growth following its pandemic boom,” the report said.

London also saw a big year-on-year decline, with prime sales volume down about 40%.

In the U.S., Miami’s prime sales dropped 13% and Orange County, California, also saw a pullback.

New York was among the bright spots in the quarter, with sales up 26%. Los Angeles and Palm Beach also saw year-over-year increases, although Palm Beach saw a dramatic drop between the second and third quarter — from $732 million to $321 million — its lowest since 2022, according to the report.

With President-elect Donald Trump’s election win, brokers and real estate experts said there are signs that deal activity at the high end is already picking up.

“While the mainstream U.S. market recovery will likely be held back if inflation ticks up under Trump, the top end of the market looks set for a rally,” said Liam Bailey, partner and head of research at Knight Frank. “Anecdotal feedback from New York, Miami and Aspen brokers points to $5m-plus sales on the rise in the first quarter of 2025.” 

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A Stradivarius violin is going up for auction at Sotheby's with an estimated value of $12 million to $18 million. Created in 1714 by Antonio Stradivari, its previous owners include violinist Si-Hon Ma and the famed Joseph Joachim. Joachim worked with composers such as Johannes Brahms and is considered one of the most influential violinists of the 19th century. Credit: Sotheby's 

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