Millionaires increasing in Oz: report

The number of Australia millionaires has risen 34 per cent as the world's wealthy recover most of their losses from the global financial crisis, a study shows.

Australian millionaires totalled 173,600 at the end of 2009, up from 129,200 at the end of 2008, the latest World Wealth Report by investment bank Merrill Lynch and consultancy Capgemini said.

That sees Australia rise to tenth in the world for number of millionaires, after slipping to eleventh in 2008.

The total wealth of what the report terms "high net worth individuals" (HNWI) - people with net assets of at least $US1 million ($A1.15 million) excluding their home - in Australia was $US519.4 billion ($A596.6 billion) in 2009, up 37 per cent on $US379.8 billion in 2008.

Managing director of Merrill Lynch's global wealth management division in Australia and New Zealand, Chris Selby, said Australians' wealth benefited from resilient gross domestic product (GDP) growth and national savings.

The main driver of wealth, however, was the rebounding share market, he said.

"After a horrible 2008 where (the market) was down almost 50 per cent, 2009's growth was 33 per cent," Mr Selby said.

"The millionaire population was a huge beneficiary.

"Australia has a very strong equity culture, so clearly the driving market capitalisations helped the wealthy."

The United States, Japan and Germany remain the world's wealth powerhouses, home to 54 per cent of the world's HNWIs.

Developing Asian countries posted the strongest growth in numbers of millionaires in 2009, led by Hong Kong and India.

That saw the value of the Asia-Pacific region's HNWIs surpass Europe's for the first time in 2009, at $US9.7 trillion ($A11.14 trillion) compared to Europe's $US9.5 trillion ($A10.91 trillion).

Overall, the number of the world's HNWIs and their value have returned to 2007 levels, indicating a recovery from the global financial crisis.

"Clearly it is as almost as though the year of 2008 never happened," Mr Selby said.

A symptom of the crisis was a rise in spending on luxury items, such as cars, boats and jets, Merill Lynch senior vice president of investments in Australia, Peter Opie said.

Millionaires spent 30 per cent of their so-called "passion investments" on those items in 2009, up from 27 per cent in the previous year.

"One really can't discount the need for them to have some feelgood factor back in their lives after the horrors of 2008," Mr Opie said.

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