Revealed: Where and what SA super rich spend their money on

Cape Town - Very wealthy South Africans are increasingly buying property and businesses in Australia and Mauritius.

This is according to the South Africa 2017 Wealth Report. The report was compiled by New World Wealth with input by Melissa Curtis from Honeybee Communications, and includes a look at luxury spending trends in SA over the past year.
 
In terms of the research, these high net worth individuals (HNWIs) are defined as people with wealth or net assets of $1m (about R13.4m) or more. Their wealth would, therefore, include all their assets - property, cash, equity and business interests - less any liabilities.

However, this does not stop them from also spending money on properties within South Africa. According to the report, more and more South African HNWIs are buying private game farms, wildlife estates and private wine farms in South Africa.

In order to cater for the lifestyle needs of the senior segment among HNWIs, the report has found that a trend for luxury retirement estate living is on the rise in SA. An example would be the Waterfall Hills Lifestyle Estate situated between Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Development of luxury apartments and hotel residences are on the rise in SA, according to the report. An example mentioned is the Aurum development in Bantry Bay on Cape Town's Atlantic Seaboard.

READ: SA's super rich increases, rich declines - report

At the same time, there is a trend among more and more HNWIs from other African countries like Nigeria, Angola and Ghana to buy residential property in SA.

As for their wheels, it seems the luxury suburban/sport utility vehicle (SUV) is a popular category among local HNWIs. Examples include the Porsche Cayenne, Range Rover, BMW X6 and Mercedes GLE.

It also seems there was a significant increase in the number of Porsches, Bentleys and Maseratis sold in December 2016 compared to December 2015.

At the same time the South African wealthy are certainly not living it up alone. The report says during 2016 South Africa received about 15 000 multimillionaire visitors from other countries, the highest in Africa by some margin.

The report defines multimillionaires as individuals with wealth or net assets of $10m (about R134m) or more.

Popular destinations for wealthy visitors to SA include the Kruger National Park area, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Umhlanga, Durban, Paarl, Franschhoek, Stellenbosch and the Garden Route, according to the report.