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Austrian millionaires richer than ever before

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Staff reporter - [email protected]
Austrian millionaires richer than ever before
Vienna's prestigious first district. Photo: APA

The assets of Austria's millionaires grew in 2013 by seven percent, to €262 billion, making them richer than ever before.

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Austria's millionaires could pay off the country's entire debt in one shot, and still have another €20 billion left over, according to a report by the Liechtenstein investment company Valluga. 

It noted that the gap between rich and poor is widening in Austria. 

A total of 4,600 Austrians became millionaires last year. This means that 82,300 people now have financial assets of more than €1 million, not including owner-occupied real estate.

Whilst the majority of Austria's wealthiest people live in Vienna (20,800 people) Lower Austria has the second highest density, with 18,400 millionaires (1.13 percent). Salzburg comes next, followed by Upper Austria, and then Vorarlberg. Burgenland has the least millionaires per capita (0.63 percent).

The average Austrian millionaire has €3.19 million in financial assets.

The Valluga report noted that whilst "ordinary people" and state budgets suffered from the economic crisis during 2013, the rich were able to increase their assets. Millionaires seemed to be resistant to the crisis, because they can diversify their assets and react quickly to changes.

Since the eurozone crisis began in 2007 Austria, Germany, and Switzerland gained more than 200,000 new millionaires. In 2013 the German-speaking millionaire club grew by 7.4 percent to a record 1.21 million people, who together possess €2,591 billion. Valluga predicts that this upward trend will continue. 

In the DACH (German-speaking) region one percent of the population owns more than one third of the total private wealth. In 2013 the richest 30 people in Germany, Austria and Switzerland owned about €304.4 billion.

The ten richest Austrians gained wealth more quickly than ordinary millionaires, increasing their assets last year by 9.3 percent, to €81.9 billion.
 
The Porsche and Piech families top Austria's rich list with assets worth €45.2 billion, followed by Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz with €8.5 billion, the Flick family with €7 billion, Billa supermarket founder Karl Wlaschek with €4.6 billion and the Novomatic Group founder Johann Graf with €4.5 billion. 

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