Finance

Here’s where the world’s top 0.001% are putting their money, according to wealth experts

Published

1 year ago

April 22, 2024

Yana Iskayeva | Moment | Getty Images

The uber wealthy live a world apart and their investing strategies also look vastly different from the average investor’s portfolio.

“While there is no official threshold, centimillionaires or individuals with a total net worth of over $100 million, is a good benchmark as entry into the 0.001% club,” said Kevin Teng, CEO of WRISE Wealth Management Singapore, a wealth enterprise for ultra-high net worth individuals.

Globally, the population of centimillionaires stands at around 28,420 individuals, and are largely concentrated in New York City, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, London and Beijing, according to data from WRISE.

They bestow knighthood on you in the United States when you buy an NFL team.

Salvatore Buscemi

CEO of Dandrew Partners

“These cities boast robust financial infrastructure, vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems, and lucrative real estate markets, making them attractive destinations for the ultra-wealthy?,” Teng told CNBC.

And this demographic that “epitomizes extreme wealth” is selective when it comes to investments, Teng said.

“They don’t invest in get rich, quick things, illiquid things today. For example, that means they don’t really do publicly traded equities,” said Salvatore Buscemi, CEO of Dandrew Partners, a private family investment office.

“They actually don’t even invest in crypto, believe it or not,” Buscemi told CNBC via Zoom. “What they’re looking for is to preserve their legacy and their wealth.”

1. Real estate

As a result, centimillionaire portfolios often feature “very strong, stable pieces of real estate,” Buscemi said. These wealthy individuals gravitate toward “trophy asset” Class A properties, or investment-grade assets that typically were built within the last 15 years.

Michael Sonnenfeldt, founder and chairman of Tiger 21 — a network of ultra-high net worth entrepreneurs and investors — told CNBC that real estate investments typically represent 27% of these individuals’ portfolios.

2. Family offices as investment vehicles

Individuals of such wealth generally have their money managed by single family offices, which handle everything including their inheritance, household bills, credit cards, immediate family expenses, etc., said Andrew Amoils, an analyst at global wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth.

“These family offices often have foundation arms for charities and venture capital arms that invest in high growth startups,” said Amoils.

The number of family offices in the world has tripled since 2019, topping 4,500 worldwide last year with an estimated $6 trillion in assets under management combined.

3. Alternative investments?

Ultra high net worth individuals also explore potentially buying stakes in professional sports teams, said Dandrew’s Buscemi.

“That’s a very, very insulated group to get into and requires a lot more than just money,” he said.

The exclusivity is a major appeal as these wealthy individuals want to mingle with people of similar status, Buscemi explained. Owning a stake in a sports team is a way for these individuals to legitimize their status, he said.

Owner Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys welcomes fans to training camp at River Ridge Complex on July 24, 2021 in Oxnard, California.

Jayne Kamin-Oncea | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

“They bestow knighthood on you in the United States when you buy an NFL team,” he said, like how American businessman and billionaire Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys in 1989.

WRISE’s Teng also noted that 0.001% individuals pay more attention to fixed income, private credit and alternative investments. He said private credit is gaining traction as investors seek sources of yield outside of conventional markets.

“This trend reflects a growing appetite for non-traditional assets that offer unique risk-return profiles,” said Teng, noting that alternative investments include venture capital, private equity and real assets.

Finance

More Americans buy groceries with buy now, pay later loans

Published

3 hours ago

April 26, 2025

Business Finance News

People shop for produce at a Walmart in Rosemead, California, on April 11, 2025.

Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty Images

A growing number of Americans are using buy now, pay later loans to buy groceries, and more people are paying those bills late, according to new Lending Tree data released Friday.

The figures are the latest indicator that some consumers are cracking under the pressure of an uncertain economy and are having trouble affording essentials such as groceries as they contend with persistent inflation, high interest rates and concerns around tariffs.

In a survey conducted April 2-3 of 2,000 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 79, around half reported having used buy now, pay later services. Of those consumers, 25% of respondents said they were using BNPL loans to buy groceries, up from 14% in 2024 and 21% in 2023, the firm said.

Meanwhile, 41% of respondents said they made a late payment on a BNPL loan in the past year, up from 34% in the year prior, the survey found.

Lending Tree’s chief consumer finance analyst, Matt Schulz, said that of those respondents who said they paid a BNPL bill late, most said it was by no more than a week or so.

“A lot of people are struggling and looking for ways to extend their budget,” Schulz said. “Inflation is still a problem. Interest rates are still really high. There’s a lot of uncertainty around tariffs and other economic issues, and it’s all going to add up to a lot of people looking for ways to extend their budget however they can.”

“For an awful lot of people, that’s going to mean leaning on buy now, pay later loans, for better or for worse,” he said.

He stopped short of calling the results a recession indicator but said conditions are expected to decline further before they get better.

“I do think it’s going to get worse, at least in the short term,” said Schulz. “I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of reason to expect these numbers to get better in the near term.”

The loans, which allow consumers to split up purchases into several smaller payments, are a popular alternative to credit cards because they often don’t charge interest. But consumers can see high fees if they pay late, and they can run into problems if they stack up multiple loans. In Lending Tree’s survey, 60% of BNPL users said they’ve had multiple loans at once, with nearly a fourth saying they have held three or more at once.

“It’s just really important for people to be cautious when they use these things, because even though they can be a really good interest-free tool to help you kind of make it from one paycheck to the next, there’s also a lot of risk in mismanaging it,” said Schulz. “So people should tread lightly.”

Lending Tree’s findings come after Billboard revealed that about 60% of general admission Coachella attendees funded their concert tickets with buy now, pay later loans, sparking a debate on the state of the economy and how consumers are using debt to keep up their lifestyles. A recent announcement from DoorDash that it would begin accepting BNPL financing from Klarna for food deliveries led to widespread mockery and jokes that Americans were struggling so much that they were now being forced to finance cheeseburgers and burritos.

Over the last few years, consumers have held up relatively well, even in the face of persistent inflation and high interest rates, because the job market was strong and wage growth had kept up with inflation — at least for some workers.

Earlier this year, however, large companies including Walmart and Delta Airlines began warning that the dynamic had begun to shift and they were seeing cracks in demand, which was leading to worse-than-expected sales forecasts.