Despite the harsh economic conditions around due to the coronavirus market disruption, the world’s wealthiest families like the Waltons have seen their fortune skyrocket.
As the world fights to reopen after months of coronavirus siege, a huge chunk of global businesses might not see the end of the storm. However, there are a chosen few that will be financially grateful for the virus as their fortune has grown immensely. Just take the world’s wealthiest family and their fortune growth amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Waltons, who are the Walmart heirs, grew $3 million richer every hour this past year on average, bringing their combined fortune to an estimated $215 billion. That’s almost $100 billion more than the world’s second-richest dynasty, the Mars candy clan.
Walmart even saw a surge in first-quarter sales despite widespread carnage in the U.S. retail sector. And the Waltons aren’t the only ones prospering this year, more such families with diversified businesses have seen similar growth.
Notably, the overall net worth of the planet’s richest 25 dynasties held steady at $1.4 trillion during the pandemic.
One of the dynasties is India’s Mukesh Ambani who managed to pull in more than $20 billion of investment for his digital platforms since April.
Closer Look at the Coronavirus and Its Effect on the Money of the Wealthiest Families
“One of the powerful things about intergenerational wealth is they have very long-term time horizons,” said Karen Harding, who heads up the private-wealth group at Boston-based NEPC, which advises ultra-high-net-worth families. “Most family offices are in a position to accept markets go up and markets go down,” he added.
Since such families have huge cash reserves, they are able to make well-advised investments when the markets are in a dip. During the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, most markets drastically went in red, liquidating years of profits.
It did not take long before the market bounced back hard, which gave investors a short span to get in the ride.
“One of the powerful things about intergenerational wealth is they have very long-term time horizons,” said Karen Harding, who heads up the private-wealth group at Boston-based NEPC, which advises ultra-high-net-worth families. “Most family offices are in a position to accept markets go up and markets go down.”
Opportunities during such economic hard times arise and disappear very fast. As a result, those dynasties that had diversified and invested in businesses that renounced hard with time, their wealth has grown immensely.
“Of course there was concern when the market sold off,” Harding said. “But quite frankly a lot of families viewed it as an opportunity.”
The current global system is in a way inclined to help the wealthy accumulate more wealth. It is also seen by the fact that governments globally do not closely follow fair taxation between the wealthy, the middle-class earners and the low-income earners.
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