According to a survey by international company WealthInsights, which conducts research reports and analysis into the world’s wealth sector, Africa’s top-performing cities are also turning into hubs for some of the wealthiest Africans.
“Cairo, Lagos, Johannesburg, those are the top cities for millionaires. Interestingly, we’ve done a report looking at the whole spectrum of African cities until 2020 and what we’ve seen is places like Accra, in Ghana, Lagos and also Nairobi, these are cities that we’re going to see growing and increasingly,”
“Although Johannesburg will still hold a key position in 2020, there’s going to be a lot of competition in the lower ranks of our city ranking.”
According to the WealthInsights May 2013 World City Millionaire rankings definitions, millionaires, otherwise known as “high net worth individuals” or “HNWIs”, refer to individuals with net assets of one million US dollars or more, excluding their primary residences.
Multi-millionaires, otherwise known as “ultra-high net worth individuals” or “UHNWIs”, are individuals with net assets of 30 million US dollars or more, excluding their primary residences.
A trend that has been found among these top cities is that of majority for the wealth coming from the financial services and mining sectors of the countries.
Johannesburg currently has 23, 400 millionaires, Cairo sits at 12, 300, Lagos at 9,800, Cape Town at 9000 and Nairobi at 5000.
Johannesburg also has 285 multi-millionaires, Cairo has 145 and Lagos has 123.
Wealth sector data is particularly important for private banks, private and luxury jet companies and luxury goods companies as a means of targeting the wealthiest in certain regions.
South Africa’s billionaires include Richemont luxury goods chairman Johann Rupert, the Oppenheimer family and mining magnates Desmond Sacco and Patrice Motsepe.
As more Africans become significantly richer, however, the gap between rich and poor still continues to grow.
“We did some research into South Africa, and we saw that the disadvantaged groups equates to 14 per cent of the total ultra-high net worth population and the ultra-high net worth is those of 30 million dollars and above. South Africa is looking at a more equal picture,” said Williams.
Other African millionaires include Nigerian Jason Njoku, founder of iRokoTV, Aliko Dangote of Nigeria’s Dangote Group and Kenya’s Naushad Merali of the Sameer Group.
