The global billionaire class is swelling fast—and not because of hustle culture. New research from Swiss bank UBS shows inherited wealth powering a boom in fortunes. The bank counted some 2,900 billionaires worldwide this year, up from 2,682 in 2024, a spike driven in part by an inheritance wave that has the super-rich handing down unprecedented sums. UBS found that 91 people became billionaires purely through inheritance, collecting $298 billion—the highest haul since the bank began tracking the trend in 2015. Among them: the six grandchildren of the late Asian paint tycoon Goh Cheng Liang, each reportedly inheriting stakes worth more than $1 billion. Another 196 “self-made” billionaires cropped up, together worth $386.5 billion. UBS executive Benjamin Cavalli called the surge proof of a “multi-year wealth transfer that’s intensifying,” with at least $5.9 trillion expected to move to heirs over the next 15 years. Governments, meanwhile, are still fighting over whether to tap the boom. Switzerland’s voters rejected a proposed 50 percent tax on large inheritances, France knocked back a 2 percent levy, and Italy plans only a modest increase to its flat-tax regime in 2026.
Read it at The Guardian
