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29 March 2024

Made your New Year’s resolutions? Compare with those of UAE’s richest

Published
By Staff

The rich folk are a bit different from you and me. While we’d make (but not stick to) New Year resolutions like losing weight and quitting smoking, they’ll plan on investing more in risk-weighted asset classes to diversify their portfolio for superior growth – or some such thing that we don’t even begin to fully understand.

A poll by one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations has revealed the top three financial resolutions for 2014 by the world’s wealthiest, including those in the UAE. And they are: to save more for their retirement, include more higher risk investments in their portfolios, and provide greater levels of financial support for their families.

In an international survey carried out by deVere Group in the last quarter of 2013, 38 per cent of those polled said that their ultimate objective for the year ahead was to build their retirement funds. A fifth (20 per cent) answered that their number one priority was to diversify their investment portfolios to include riskier opportunities, 22 per cent responded they hope to be able to offer more financial assistance to loved ones, whilst 11 per cent cited a combination of other resolutions.

A total of 547 deVere clients, between the ages of 25 and 75, with investable assets of more than £1 million (Dh6 million) were surveyed. Respondents are residents of the UAE, the UK, USA, South Africa, Hong Kong, France, Spain, Germany and Switzerland.

Of the findings, Nigel Green, the founder and chief executive of deVere Group, said:  “The poll highlights that even society’s wealthier people are concerned about being able to fund the lifestyle they desire throughout their retirement. Their worries are fuelled by soaring living costs, low interest rates, and the possibility of high, long-term medical and/or care bills in the future.

“With these factors in mind, and because of rising life expectancy, meaning the money we accumulate will have to last longer than ever before, it is prudent that putting more aside to fund retirement is the number one resolution in 2014.”

He continued: “High net worth individuals’ appetite for risk appears to be growing further as we move into the New Year. The general optimistic feeling about the global economy combined with the low interest rate/creeping inflation environment, amongst other issues, is driving an increasing number of people to consider increasing their holdings of higher risk-higher return investments to maximise their wealth in 2014. It would seem that these people know that holding large amounts of cash for example will, typically, only make them poorer.”

Green concluded: “With many young families struggling to cope with high levels of debt and the burgeoning cost of living, financially supporting loved ones, particularly children and grandchildren with things like school and university fees, is perhaps unsurprisingly another key priority for next year amongst those we surveyed.”

(Home page image courtesy Shutterstock)