Whether businesses that generate vast wealth are run by families or unrelated individuals largely depends on their industry and where they are located, according to a new study.

Of businesses that generate a billion dollars or more in wealth, 42% are family run and the remaining 58% are run by non-related individuals, according to a Forbes report entitled, "Insights: Global Wealth and Family Ties." Forbes studied 1,253 of the world's largest fortunes in 12 countries from the perspective of whether they were operated by families or individuals. Almost all were worth at least a billion dollars.

A large part of whether a family is involved in managing a business fortune depends on geography and the culture of the country where they are located, the report concluded.

Family-managed fortunes are most numerous in Hong Kong, India, France and the Middle East, according to the report. The lowest percentages are in Russia, the United Kingdom and China. In general, the older the economy, the more business wealth has been passed down from generation to generation. In emerging markets such as Russia and China, where Communism was the controlling factor until a couple of decades ago, more individuals control the wealthy companies because they only recently started them.

In mature economies, 46% of the largest fortunes are run by families and in emerging markets 39% are family businesses. Regardless of the age of the economy, more than half of the billionaires are self-made individuals.

"India is among the countries with the highest percentages of family-run fortunes (73%) and a prime example of how social expectations shape the interaction of family and wealth," the report's authors said. Although it is a relatively new economy, India maintains "strong family ties in all facets of life," adding that this is a "social expectation" in the country. A similar culture prevails in the Middle East, according to the report.

In Europe, the situation is more balanced and half of the fortunes involve families. This "results from a long economic history that created many family fortunes, some dating back centuries, while also maintaining open, free-market-oriented economies, which foster an entrepreneurial spirit," said the study.

Forbes labels China and Russia the lone wolves because of the large number of individual fortunes. In China, 66.5% of fortunes are managed by non-families and in Russia it is 81%. Both countries also have a large number of women billionaires because Communism encouraged equality of the sexes.

The United States remains a source of innovation and entrepreneurship and more than half (58%) of the fortunes are non-family managed. The epitome of the family-run business in the U.S. are the Waltons, owners of Walmart, with a combined wealth of $93 billion that includes six family members with more than $1 billion each.

Latin America is a mix of old family money and new fortunes created by recent economic growth, according to the report.

Forbes has put Hong Kong and Singapore together and separated from the rest of East Asia because of the strong family fortunes generated in real estate, an industry that tends to generate family-owned business fortunes.
Real estate, along with finance, sports, construction, and food and beverage are among the industries that are dominated by family-owned fortunes, according to the report.

Gaming, technology and logistics generate the most individually run fortunes. This is particularly true in technology (76% individuals), where the billionaires tend to be younger. In many instances, billionaire tech companies were started by groups of like-minded friends rather than family members.

Forbes also measured the growth in fortunes and found individually run fortunes tend to grow faster than family-run ones. The non-family run fortunes analyzed in this study gained 9% in net worth over the last three years while family run fortunes gained 4%.

-Karen DeMasters