The Wealth Management Industry in Perspective
Foreign wealth managers need not fear the development of stronger local wealth management...The wealth management industry in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) represents a roughly $800 billion opportunity. Figure 1 shows the total amount of assets in the hands of affluent individuals (with more than $100,000 in investable assets), high net worth individuals (dollar millionaires or HNWIs as those in the financial industry call them), and ultra-high net worth individuals (the UHNWIs, which have at least $30 million in investable assets). As the figure shows, wealth in the region lies mostly in Turkey and Saudi Arabia — two countries that we discuss in-depth in the next section. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) represent a second tier for wealth management firms — with roughly $60 billion to $110 billion in investable assets in the hands of the richest 10% of the population in each country. The other countries in the region represent ancillary markets, with roughly $20 billion in assets each — or the amount of wealth required to make the top 50 in the Forbes 1000.
