Rich Not Getting Richer in Coronavirus Crisis

Working Israelis and small business owners aren’t the only ones who have been hurt by the coronavirus crisis. Millionaires and billionaires are also suffering.

The pandemic has thinned the ranks of the country’s millionaires by 154, according to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2020.

Israel’s millionaire list was 157,286 as of June 2020, compared to 157,440 millionaires in Israel at the start of the year, a net loss of 154 millionaires.

For purposes of the list-making, Credit Suisse considers a millionaire anyone with $1 million in liquid assets.

The more elite club of billionaires lost no membership, though their wealth declined during the pandemic months.

Israel’s ten billionaires reportedly had lost some $2.7 billion on average as of June 2020, due to the fall in the financial markets, while the average billionaire worldwide enjoyed an increase of $2.8 billion during the same period of the pandemic.

At the peak of the crisis (March 18), the Israeli billionaires had seen their wealth fall by 68% compared with the previous month but by June some of this amount had been recovered, the report said.

There are 10 billionaires in Israel, according to Credit Suisse. They are Eyal Ofer, Stef Wertheimer, Teddy Sagi, Yuri Milner, Shaul Shani, Idan Ofer, Shari Arison, Arnon Milchan, Yitzhak Tshuva and Gil Shwed, according to the Forbes ranking.