In an unprecedented array of events, the world’s wealthiest billionaires have been affected so much that their loses have broken all records.
The top 500 wealthiest people of the world, collectively, lost $ 331 billion in a single day. Yes, $ 331 billion. On Thursday, the biggest single day drop was seen in the 8-year history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
This week’s market collapse ended a decade of soaring markets and money that helped the wealthiest people of the World amass a record fortune of $ 6.1 trillion less than 2 months ago. However, in the past week, those gains dissipated over the Coronavirus Pandemic and plunging oil prices that sent the markets a trip south the graph.
Since the first of the year, the World’s richest people have lost 16% of their collective new worth as per the index. The market nosedive has affected billionaires from every industry and every part of the world.
President of Doraine Insurance Group, Charles Doraine said that “People, right now, are afraid. The former wealth manager added, “Things are being introduced to the world of investing that have never been there before — health risks. This is stuff beyond the market’s normal fears and concerns.”
This nosedive has made the superrich anxious which is evident by spike in demand of private jets exodus to their second homes, and cancelling of charity galas. The unified global precautionary measures to contain the COVID-19 have introduced the elites to these restrictions which they have rarely experienced.
On Thursday, the wealthy travellers scrambled to book private jets to the US from Europe ahead of recently announced travel restrictions by the US President Donald Trump.
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The laden rhetoric address to the nation done by Trump on Wednesday evening did next to nothing to calm the investors as the stocks slit further, trimming the wealth of some of his major investors.
Harold Hamm from Oklahoma dropped off the index Monday after he lost almost 50% of his new worth, majorly due to the change in oil prices. Sheldon Adelson, Majority owner of Las Vegas Sands Corp, which is the largest casino operator in the world lost $ 11.7 billion since the start of this year as casinos floors emptied and trade shows were cancelled. He lost more than 25% of his net worth.
Micky Arison, Chairman, Carnival Corp, dropped 6 spots on the index on Thursday after the share of the world’s biggest cruise operator dropped by 31%, attaining the lowest mark in 23 years. The company announced that all of its voyages by its Princess Cruises line will be suspended for 2 months.
People high on the list also sustained a huge drop in a single day as Bernard Arnault, Chairman of LVMH, a company that owns luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Hublot, TAG Heuer, Fendi, just to name a few, lost $ 9.5 billion. Jeff Bezos, CEO and President of Amazon.com Inc., lost $ 81. Billion of his new worth. Reliance Industries Limited’s Chairman, Mukesh Ambani, too, lost over $ 3 billion.
A total of 53 billionaires saw their net worth drop to the lowest since they joined the index.
Wealthiest from Brazil were particularly hit the hardest, they were hit by both weakening real and plummeting stock prices. XP Inc., Founder, Guilherme Benchimol was no longer a billionaire after the shares of Sao Paulo based brokerage firm fell 34% below what its December IPO price was.
Russia’s richest 12 people lost $ 65 billion in 2020, this is partly because of the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
