The wealth of ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the Middle East is more likely to be based on the financial industry than the oil industry, according to Wealth-X, a research and consulting organization about the very wealthy.
“The typical Middle Eastern ultra-high-net-worth individual is not an oil baron,” says Michel Nassif, Wealth-X director of business development foro the Middle East and Africa. “He or she is most likely to represent the finance and banking sector or an industrial conglomerate.”
Wealth-X built a statistical profile of the ultra-high-net-worth Middle Eastern individual, those with $30 million or more. On average, he or she has $151 million in total wealth, has liquid assets of $46 million and owns $5.7 million in luxury assets, such as private aircraft or collectibles.
More than half (55 percent of the ultra-high-net-worth population) are self-made, 14 percent have inherited their wealth, and 31 percent have built on inherited wealth to reach ultra-high-net-worth status, Wealth-X says. There are 4,595 ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the Middle East with a total of $710 billion in assets.
The very wealthy in the Middle East are overwhelmingly male with only 6 percent female. Most are from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.