World's rich scale back exposure to property

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FT Syndication Service

LONDON: Rapid growth in emerging markets enabled the world's richest people to shrug off the credit crisis last year and expand their assets by more than 9.0 per cent to $40,700bn, an authoritative study of global wealth has found.

But, the wealthy have responded to the turmoil in the markets by scaling back their exposure to property and hedge funds in favour of safer investments.

The study, compiled by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, underscores how the world's rich have managed to avoid some of the heavy losses that have hit the banking business and continue to reap disproportionate benefits from expansion in the global economy.

The World Wealth Report shows there are more than 10m people on the planet with financial assets worth more than $l.0m (euro641,000,