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For the first time in a decade, overall billionaire wealth fell last year and the world's richest people are worried, John Mathews UBS Wealth Management Americas' head of ultra high net worth said on Thursday.
Billionaire wealth has grown seven-fold in the last two decades, but in 2015, the platinum-lined pool of money belonging to the world's nearly 1,400 billionaires fell by $300 billion, from $5.4 trillion to $5.1 trillion, according to a new study by UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The number of ultra-rich continued to grow as 210 new billionaires joined the elite club, but 160 also retreated to the ranks of millionaires, according to the study. More than half of those that dropped below $1 billion were in Asia.
The study interviewed 60 billionaires and their heirs, and many said they were more worried than they had been in years over continued low interest rates, increasing global protectionism and the dilution of their wealth by heirs.
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