Advisers of rich and superrich have less wealth to manage

Wealth managers got some bad news today from an annual study of the size of wealthy markets in the United States.
The number of households with more than $1 million in investible assets declined 8% to 5.1 million at the end of last month, from a year earlier, according to estimates from a report issued today by Phoenix Marketing International of Rhinebeck, N.Y.
The drop was even steeper for the superrich. The number of households with $5 million or more in investible assets plummeted 18% to 675,000 during the same period, according to the report.
The dramatic decline in wealthier households will certainly affect wealth managers, said David Thompson, Phoenix’s managing director of market research on the affluent.
“There is clearly not going to be as many households coming into the millionaire category anytime soon,” he said. “The real focus for wealth managers now is going to be protecting wealth and retaining clients.”
The report attributed the drop in wealthier households to the market downturn.
In less gloomy news, the number of affluent U.S. households — those with $250,000 or more in investible assets or $150,000 or more in annual household income — grew by 2% to 23.8 million during the past year, according to the report.
Gains in affluent households were attributed primarily to income growth, the report stated.
The Phoenix study’s estimates were based on 940 statistical areas in the United States.

Related Topics: Wealth Management