Number of Multimillionaires Worth Over $30Mln Drops for First Time in Years

The number of people whose wealth exceeds $30 million dropped for the first time in 10 years in 2015, the head of consulting company Knight Frank Russia & CIS, Sergey Gipsh, said Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The commercial property consultancy compiled data from over 90 countries for its latest wealth report, examining trends in prime property markets and wealth.

"For the first time in 10 years, the number of rich people has fallen," Gipsh told reporters while presenting Knight Frank's Wealth Report 2016.

Globally, the number of multimillionaires whose assets are valued at or above $30 million has fallen by 3 percent, Gipsh said, adding that Russia and the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) saw a larger fall of 4 percent.

However, the company forecasts the number to rise over the next 10 years. It is expected to increase by 72 percent in Russia and the CIS while rising 41 percent globally.

The world's billionaires had a rocky 2015. On Tuesday, the Forbes business magazine published its 30th annual ranking of the world's billionaires. Listing 1,810 billionaires, down from last year's 1,826, the magazine valued their net wealth at $6.48 trillion. This is $570 billion less than in 2014, while the average net worth of those on the list dropped below $3.6 billion for the first time since 2010.