Wealth in Motion Navigating the Great Wealth Transfer

[music] Thank you very much. Well, it's wonderful to be back here this year. I can't believe it's actually been a year, Ben, since we were sitting on this stage. Let's talk about the billionaires ambitions report, finding out how billionaires think and what drives their decision making. You've got lots to tell us, some really exciting stuff, but what really stood out in 2025 for you?

Well, good morning to all of you. Welcome and thanks for for joining the session. Yes, I can't believe it's been a year since we sat here. Uh, I would say there are two sort of main drivers. One being uh innovation.

So we see an acceleration of selfmade self-made billionaires and the second one really being the acceleration of of wealth transfer and for those of you who have not seen the the latest billionaire report uh that we just published last Thursday I recommend you to download it. So we've published the 11th edition of the report uh the longest sort of running study of its kind where we use data that go back to 1995. So we have a a 30-year sort of inventory of data where we you know benchmark and and analyze the evolution of uh the the billionaires overall. So what stood out we we've seen um the creation of 196 new self-made billionaires just alone this year we have seen uh 91 billionaires emerging through inheritance and by the way just that pool itself uh you know inherited almost 300 billion of assets. So which is uh an incredible number to uh to start with.

So um we we are seeing an incredibly you know sort of u hard sort of evolution of that. What is the probably the stood out is that we have reached a record wealth pool of our billionaire community of uh 15.8 trillion 15.8 trillion up 13% year-over-year which is uh quite staggering actually. It really is.

And what about here in the Middle East, Ben?

When you double click on the on the Middle East, um, as we you will see in the report, we've benchmarking region by region. Actually, the good news for the Middle East, we haven't seen a single dropout to start with. Um, and we've seen a creation of 20 new billionaires that have emerged from from the Middle East itself. I think one other anecdote which uh maybe um affects all of us as well here is that um four in 10 billionaires expect now to live much longer. Uh three of 10 expect to live a little bit longer.

So that in itself uh I would say creates an incredible opportunity for us as wealth manager as well when it comes to you know wealth planning obviously but also the whole portfolio construction uh and the asset allocation process

and also there's great news isn't there for female billionaires outpacing the growth rate of male billionaires. What does that tell us about the role of women in wealth creation and inheritance? Yes. So that is a topic we are laser laser focused. Uh and there's a good reason for that because in no time to come half of the wealth pool in the world will be in the hands of uh of women.

Um so we have now seen for the fourth consecutive time that the average wealth of our billionaire or women billionaire have actually increased for 2025 twice

um at the speed at of the average wealth of the male billionaire u which again is a is a remarkable number. Um now people obviously ask so what's the the driving factor for that? We we have seen clearly a much much stronger presence of um you know female leaders um in leadership positions. And the second one is uh we have seen more than ever um you know um I would say female entrepreneurs emerging over the last uh many years and and decades. and watch out because we have seen by now a number of those companies already reaching unicorn uh status and maybe one more sort of u um analytics on on that.

So if you look at the billionaire community today we count shy of 3,000 so 2,919 to be precise and the female billionaires today count 374. So more than 10% by now. And again just this year alone we've seen 43 new female billionaires emerging. U 26 of them uh are actually um self-made and uh uh self-made and the rest actually through inheritance.

So really really impressive and I know UBS is doing a lot to support the female billionaires.

Yes. Um we have um u for the not just for this year but for a couple of years running now a dedicated focus on this segment for all the right reasons I I just outlined. So we have a dedicated sort of women segment uh team um and what we have done maybe I can summarize this in sort of four four verticals. First education. We have trained um 900 of our bankers over the last two years across 15 sort of uh countries on behavioral science on the values uh you know how how do women think, how do they decide, how do they act?

So we want them to be obviously on on top of that. The second one is um event platform. So we've done a 100 events alone this year where we uh engage 6,000 uh women across uh a variety of topics. I would say largely thought leadership than uh lifestyle to be honest. The third one um which is an interesting one as well.

We are helping uh founders of companies uh to fund raise. So we've done that successfully again this year where we've engaged u close to 200 uh entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs uh across 25 nations to actually help in some of the funding gaps that they are facing. And the last one is really wealth insight. So it's a topic that is ever changing. So we try to stay on top of it uh and learn as much as we can.

And if we look at the younger generation, some really exciting findings but also some challenges.

Yes. So the the younger or the next wave of billionaires is is uh emerging as we have seen um again twofold self-made as I said earlier or inheritance and now if you look at the entire billionaire's population today already 27% of the billionaires are actually multigenerational 27% and they command a wealth pool of uh already 12% and We expect that to to increase obviously substantially. The other interesting aspects and and by the way I keep talking about billionaires but it just happens so that we published the report but all what I'm talking about here is equally relevant for ultra high netw worth um clients as well. Um but the other thing that we have observed is that almost uh half of the sort of multi-generational billionaires have actually moved already once if not more throughout their lifetime and another 15% of them are expected to [clears throat] to move their uh sort of home location uh in time to come. So this is um a phenomena that uh you know drives obviously a numerous uh challenges and opportunities as well.

And the the maybe the last aspects um of that is um when we surveyed um our billionaire community today, eight out of 10 billionaires expect their children to actually pursue their own career path to go on their own and prove themselves as well. And to me you know being um in this um business for a while now uh there is a you know gigantic shift of that what 10 20 years a you know was almost self understood that the children one or the other will take over uh the reign from the patriarch today you know most of our clients and many of them actually have come to realization that it's probably best that you know someone else might take the company forward and there are variety of uh ways to do so but uh it's no longer the case where you know inevitably the children or family members will be the natural successor of businesses

and you talk about Ben billionaires on the move. What are the main reasons why they are moving more than ever before?

I would sort of summarize them uh on on on maybe four four counts. First um and by the way this place here is a is a net beneficiary of that um of course. So first is is rule of law. Uh people want to live in a place where there is order uh and rule of law. Secondly uh they like to be in a place where there is proper health care support as well.

That's a phenomena

that was really uh more and more driven post covid as well. The third one is education, particularly for families that have children. And the last one, an important one obviously are taxes.

Of course, taxes. Um, how is the great wealth transfer reshaping the global billionaire landscape though? So when we looked at last year's report and I compared this with uh the 2025 numbers. So we are expecting a 6.9 trillion uh wealth transfer to happen between now 20 you know 25 and 2040.

So 15 years only between now and then. And just to put that in perspective, um you know, at UBS, uh you know, being the global wealth manager, um you know, of of uh of size, uh just in global wealth management alone, we manage roughly 4.7 uh trillion as of Q3 this year. So put 4.7 in proportion to the 6.

9 trillion Well. So these are gigantic numbers that we are talking about. um the bulk of which obviously uh in the US um where the largest wealth pool sits. So 2.8 trillion plus minus alone of the 6.

9 are expected to change hands um in the in the US. What's interesting is as well that comes with a lot of u opportunities but also complexities. And the reason I'm I'm saying this is because we see more and more families that are actually spread across different jurisdictions. We see family assets that are spread across different locations and we see tangible assets as well of our clients spread all over the place as well. So the wealth transfer topic um is is a very interesting one.

It's a very complex one to start with and we like complexity. Um and uh you will actually see um you know the clients um wanting to you know operate maybe from a single location but related to their assets that are spread across various jurisdictions.

And how is UBS translating this into a real opportunity for its clients? Look, we we've been focusing on this topic uh for for really a long time and we are obsessed about that and the reason being is and and I maybe go back a step. Um if you look at the uh overall wealth pool in the world, we are talking about roughly 84 trillion uh of assets. Half of that 50% are actually business assets. the other half are bankable assets.

So when we talk about wealth transfer uh and some mistakenly keep talking about next generation all the time actually very often it's next in line uh and yes there could be next generation as well. So the the wealth pool uh consists of a very large portion of business assets and at UBS when we engage our clients we obviously want to cover both aspects. So of course we are interested to make sure that we can continue the legacy on their bankable assets on one hand but I can tell you make no mistake you will see the largest transfer of business assets over the next 10 20 years. These are well-run, you know, uh, family businesses, uh, that have been around for a long time that are up for grabb, up for transfer. And not because these are, you know, businesses that are maybe no longer uh, you know, market conform, but simply because there is a lack of succession.

And we are, you know, trying very hard to handhold clients throughout this uh, this process. And I I can maybe make one example. Just last Friday, I had uh lunch with a very prominent self-made entrepreneur who has built an incredible, you know, business um in the luxury segment um over uh many decades now. and she has approached us uh to to give her guidance and handholding as to how she can bring in uh potentially a family member to succeed. In this particular case that person is not ready yet.

So we are talking about what can we do in terms of transition that period but genuinely people come to us and seek for guidance and help and and we've been publishing a lot of thought leadership pieces which may or may not be of interest to you. Global family office report, billionaires report but also the entrepreneurs report which is worth looking at it and there you will see that more than half of the business owners have no succession plan in place. So again we we want to make sure that you know we have the ability to help them on on both counts which are actually the largest right

yeah because it can be a difficult journey indeed and just the final question because we're running out of time Ben but what does 2026 look like

I would expect this whole thing to to accelerate um we are positioning ourselves uh very very strongly um uh on you know addressing some of these ever uh changing demands that are coming our way. Multi-shoring by the way is a topic that u uh I've been entrusted with uh as well. This is really about serving clients you know out of one location but potentially across multi-jurisdictions when it comes to their sort of booking center needs. So I would expect that to accelerate particularly in a very fragile environment that we live right with the geopolitical uncertainties that are there that are you know a true concerns by our clients as we have also uh surveyed that aside from tariffs geopolitical uh movements that are at play and then obviously policy changes that come. So with that uh in full motion, I think we are probably seeing all what I just uh talked about to actually gain a lot more speed over the next couple of uh months and years to come.

Benjamin, some fascinating insights as ever. Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. Benjamin Kavali.

Thank you. Thank you.