Capital Economy, Business and Finance
With impeccable timing, Abu Dhabi’s richest family has become the world’s richest family. Cop28 is still hosting an epic argument about fossil fuels and renewables down the coast in Dubai, and Abu Dhabi’s Al Nahyan family has appeared for the first time on Bloomberg’s annual ranking of family fortunes thanks almost entirely to spiking oil and gas prices as a result of the war in Ukraine.
The House of Nahyan enters the list at number one with a combined net worth of $305 billion, $45 billion ahead of the US’s Walmart clan. Qatar’s Al Thanis ($133 billion) have also made the list for the first time, for the same reason. But oil and gas aren’t the only factors behind a spectacular $1.5 trillion surge in the overall wealth of the world’s 25 richest families in the past year.
They have to spend some of it, so luxury goods have outperformed other sectors too. Hermes ($150 billion) is at number 3, and Wertheimer (Chanel; $89 billion) at 9.