High net worth individuals

High-net-worth individual (HNWI) is a term used by some segments of the financial services industry to designate persons whose investible assets (such as stocks and bonds) exceed a given amount. Typically, these individuals are defined as holding financial assets (excluding their primary residence) with a value greater than US$1 million.

However, there are distinct classifications of HNWI and the exact dividing lines depend on how a bank wishes to segment its market. For example, an investor with less than US$1 million but more than US$100,000 is considered to be "affluent", or perhaps even "Sub-HNWI". "Very-HNWI" (VHNWI) can refer to someone with a net worth of at least US$5 million.

By 2007, the expansion of HNWI assets led to the creation of a super class of HNWIs, known as ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs), i.e. those with US$30 million in liquid financial assets according to the Capgemini and Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report 2006 or with a disposable income of more than US$20 million.

At the end of 2016, there were just over 13 million HNWIs in the world. The United States of America had the highest number of HNWIs (4,400,000) of any country, whilst London had the most HNWIs (357,200) among cities as based on data from the Knight Frank Wealth Report.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires all SEC-registered investment advisers to periodically file a report known as Form ADV. Among other things, Form ADV requires each investment adviser to state how many of their clients are "high-net-worth individuals." The Form ADV Glossary of Terms explains that a "high-net-worth individual" is an individual with at least $1,000,000 managed by the reporting investment adviser, or whose net worth the investment adviser reasonably believes exceeds $2,000,000 (or who is a "qualified purchaser" as defined in section 2(a)(51)(A) of the Investment Company Act of 1940). The net worth of an individual for SEC purposes may include assets held jointly with his or her spouse. Unlike the definitions used in the financial and banking trade, the SEC's definition of HNWI would include the value of a person's verifiable non-financial assets, such as a primary residence or art collection.

The World Wealth Report was co-published by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, previously known as Cap Gemini Ernst & Young who worked together since c. 1993, investigating the "needs of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs are individuals with more than $1 million in assets excluding primary residence)" in order to "successfully serve this market segment." Their first annual World Wealth Report was published in 1996. The World’s Wealth Report defines HNWIs as those who hold at least US$1 million in assets excluding primary residence and ultra-HNWIs as those who hold at least US$30 million in assets excluding primary residence. The report states that in 2008 there were 8.6 million HNWIs worldwide, a decline of 14.9% from 2007. The total HNWI wealth worldwide totaled US$32.8 trillion, a 19.5% decrease from 2007. The ultra-HNWIs experienced the greater loss, losing 24.6% in population size and 23.9% in accumulated wealth. The report revised its 2007 projections that HNWI financial wealth would reach US$59.1 trillion by 2012 and revised this downward to a 2013 HNWI wealth valued at $48.5 trillion advancing at an annual rate of 8.1%.

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