Asia's tech, healthcare billionaires pull ahead of peers: report

THE fortunes of Asia's wealthiest have grown more polarising, with billionaires in the booming tech and healthcare sectors pulling ahead of their peers as the Covid-19 crisis accelerates the divergence.

Billionaires in the Asia-Pacific identified as disruptors and innovators grew their wealth by 23 per cent to US$1.4 trillion from 2018 through to July 31 this year. This is compared with a smaller 13 per cent increase to US$1.2 trillion among traditional billionaires over the same period, fresh data from UBS and PwC's annual billionaire report showed.

About 94 per cent of tech entrepreneurs and 71 per cent of healthcare entrepreneurs fall under this "disruptors and innovators" sector.

"Social distancing accelerated the ascendance of digital businesses, compressing several years' evolution into a few months," said the report.

"Other billionaires, on the wrong side of economic, technological, societal and environmental trends, are becoming less wealthy."

Asia is now leading the world in tech and healthcare developments. The region has the highest share of billionaires in tech and healthcare, with 181 billionaires or 8 per cent of the total billionaire population. This is compared with 7 per cent from the Americas and 4 per cent from EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa).

As at end-July 2020, 17 per cent of Asia's billionaires are in consumer and retail, 16 per cent in the tech field, and 14 per cent in materials.

While Singapore's wealthiest typically come from more traditional industries such as real estate, banking and hospitality, more billionaires in the Republic have been moving into "new age" sectors such as tech and healthcare, said Anurag Mahesh, Asia-Pacific co-head of global family office at UBS.

In a briefing on Wednesday, he told reporters that the more traditional billionaires in Singapore have also been "tech-enabling" their existing businesses.

Amid ongoing macro uncertainties, Asia's wealthiest appear to be more resilient than their global peers.

From 2019 to early-April this year after the stock market sell-off, Asian billionaire wealth fell 2.1 per cent to US$2.4 trillion. This is less than the 10.1 per cent drop in EMEA and the 7.4 per cent fall in the Americas.

From early-April to end-July this year, the wealth of Asia billionaires rebounded 36 per cent to US$3.3 trillion, showing signs of a post-pandemic recovery, said Mr Mahesh.

With 831 billionaires in the region as at end-July, Asia continues to hold the highest share of billionaires globally, representing nearly 40 per cent of global numbers. They account for US$3.3 trillion of total wealth, each possessing on average US$4 billion.

Globally, billionaire wealth grew 27.5 per cent to reach a new high of US$10.2 trillion from April to July this year, surpassing the previous peak of US$8.9 trillion reached at the end of 2017.