Hobbies are a great way of meeting new people with similar interests. For the ultra-wealthy, joining the right golf clubs or bidding on the right art is the best social capital to gainand the most popular way to spend time.
Some of Americas richest are so-called centi-millionairestypically founders or CEOs of large, successful companies whose wealth exceeds $100 million, according to a new report on centi-millionaires by Henley & Partners, a London-based investment migration consultancy. Others are smart investors or just heirs to their parents fortunes. There are only about 25,500 of them in the world, and almost 40% of them live in the U.S. Many own private jets and superyachts, outsource their asset management to a private family office, and split the year between their two or three or four vacation homes.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, people in this category dont tend to frequent their local movie theater chains (they have home theaters), gyms (theres one in the penthouse), or fast-casual restaurants (theres a chef for that). Instead, they tend to spend most of their free time on the expensive hobbies that put them in the company of their rarified peers.
While its hard to classify such a large and diverse group, the report drew on data from global intelligence firm New World Wealth (NWW) to determine where you might find a centi-millionaire in the wild. NWW tracks the movements and spending habits of the worlds wealthiest people. It found the following to be the top pursuits centi-millionaires took part in in 2022:
- Golf
- Art collecting
- Cycling and mountain biking
- Skiing
- Horse riding
- Fishing
- Classic car collecting
- Hunting
- Yachting and sailing
- Watch collecting
Cycling, classic car collecting, and fishingparticularly fly-fishing in places like Montana and Wyominghave ballooned in popularity since NWW first began collecting research in 2013, the report notes.
Taking part in most outdoor-related pursuits, like golf and horseback riding, requires centi-millionaires to travel beyond city limits. Most centi-millionaires live in New York, followed by the San Francisco Bay Area, London, Los Angeles, and Beijing.
Lucky for those city dwellers looking to decorate their mansions walls, most high-end art auctions, such as those at Christies or Sothebys, take place in New York and London. But when theyre ready to pack up and go, the biggest centi-millionaire hotspots are the Hamptons, Palm Beach, and the French Riviera.
While individual habits and preferences differ, centi-millionaires number one goal is always to simply have more options than the regular joe.
The super-rich are motivated by the pursuit of freedom and independence, Dr. Rainer Zitelmann, one of the report authors wrote. They want to decide for themselves whether to work, what work to do, when to work, where to work, and with whom they work.
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