Mozambique millionaires seen leading growth of Africa’s rich

Mozambique millionaires seen leading growth of Africa’s rich South Africa is expected to remain home to most of the continent’s wealthy.Mozambique is expected to add dollar millionaires at the fastest rate in Africa over the next decade followed by Ivory Coast and Zambia as a mix of construction, financial services and property developments boost the ranks of the rich on the world’s poorest continent.The number of people with net assets, excluding their primary residence, of more than $1 million will surge 120% in Mozambique by 2024 to 2,200, Johannesburg-based research company New World Wealth predicted. The number of millionaires in Ivory Coast will jump 109% to 4,800 while those in Zambia will double, the company forecast.

“High net worth individual numbers are expected to rise by 45% over the next 10 years, reaching approximately 234,000,” New World said in the report given to Bloomberg.Mozambique’s economy is being boosted by the biggest natural gas find in the world in the last decade, Ivory Coast is recovering from a civil war and Zambia’s rich are expected to benefit from real estate development. The countries will take over from oil producers Angola and Ghana, where the number of millionaires rose more than fivefold between 2000 and 2014, according to New World.Over that period the number of millionaires in Africa rose 145% compared with a global average of 73%.

Asset Managers

While South Africa, with 46,800 millionaires, and Egypt, with 20,200, remain Africa’s biggest wealth centers, growth in the numbers of the rich have been held back by emigration from a stuttering economy in South Africa and instability in Egypt.Still, South Africa is expected to remain home to most of the continent’s wealthy, with their numbers rising 40% in the next decade to 65,700.About $120 billion in African wealth is overseen by asset management companies with Investec Ltd. holding the biggest market share followed by Rand Merchant Bank and UBS AG, New World said. The African private banking market is forecast by the research company to grow 8% per annum over the next decade.