Somewhat fewer millionaires in Hong Kong last year

The number of millionaires in the city seems to have dwindled somewhat due to the tough times.

Hong Kong lost 30,000 millionaires last year, said the latest Hong Kong Consumer Wealth Review released by Citibank. The survey defined a millionaire as someone with liquid assets of more than HK$1 million (US$129,000).

That brought the number of millionaires down to 527,000 persons compared to 558,000 millionaires in 2010, a reduction of almost 6%. The largest number of wealthy people lives in Wan Chai.

Hong Kong’s equity markets lost 20% of their value in 2010 and this is being cited as one reason for the disappearance of so many millionaires. Most of the wealthy made their money on equity and real estate investments, the survey found out.

The survey also showed that net assets held by the wealthy fell to an average of HK$9.3 million from HK$9.8 million in 2010. Of this total, only HK$2.2 million was in liquid assets compared to HK$3.3 million a year ago.

"The drop was related to the undesirable investment environment as the Hang Seng Index fell a lot last year," said Christine Lam Yuk- wah, deputy country business manager and head of retail banking at Citibank Global Consumer Group.

The bank asked the University of Hong Kong Social Sciences Research Centre to interview 4,066 adults aged from 21 to 79 between November last year and January.

From property, Hong Kong’s millionaires have shifted their investments to equities, the yuan, forex, mutual funds and time deposits.