AUSTRALIA - Home of the Ultra-Rich
Peppermint Grove, a suburb of Perth in Western Australia, has all the trappings you’d expect of one of the wealthiest postal codes in the country: sprawling riverside mansions, exclusive schools and a yacht club.
But lately there’s a new sign that the Perth elite are starting to tip over the line separating the merely rich from the fabulously so. Glance in a real estate agent’s window, and you’ll often see properties advertised with a telltale phrase: “Perfect for a family office.”
Since 2019, as the rich get richer, the number of family offices worldwide has more than tripled, to almost 4,600 last year, according to investment data provider Preqin.
After an almost two-decades-long mining boom, Perth, with a population of more than 2 million, has 64 centimillionaires. That places it among the richest cities in the world by that measure, tied with Stockholm and ahead of Berlin and Dublin, according to data from citizenship consulting firm Henley & Partners.
Family offices have some universal attractions. They typically have minimal disclosure requirements and let the rich exert tight control.
But there’s another angle to the pitch, too. Family offices work directly with billionaires and centimillionaires, giving advisers a bigger say in decisions. “You probably wouldn’t get access if you were part of a larger business,” says Shaun Parkin, cofounder of [a] local consulting firm.
-www.japantimes.co.jp, 28 May 2024
Arno's Commentary
Australia has a social-capitalist based economy, in line with most European countries. According to the 2024 World Happiness report, Australia ranks tenth, with Finland at the top and, somewhat strange, Israel in fifth place. When it comes to life expectancy, Australia is within the top ranks: 83.5 years, and infant mortality stands at a low 2.9 per 1,000 live births.
Its population has grown from 3.7 million in 1901, to 10.3 million in 1960, and 26.6 million in 2024.
The issue here is wealth. This is not limited to Australia but is global. Although there are individual, so-called third-world countries that are suffering, based on various reliable sources, the world is getting richer.
This corresponds to Revelation 18:3: “For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.”
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
