The Football World Cup will be kicking-off on June 11 in South Africa. I have spend the last couple of weeks criss-crossing South Africa and the expectations for the impact of the World Cup are skyrocketing. No doubt, the country has already achieved a lot in preparing for the mega event. The stadiums have been finished in time, security has been tightened and everybody is discussing the chances of Bafana Bafana (the SA football team) reaching the semi-finals or even winning the tournament. There are also high expectations that  the World Cup will bring wealth and riches to the country. It would be a much needed boost as the economy has been hit in the short-term by the economic down turn. Hotels, restaurants, entrepreneurs of all types expect to be showered with the money foreigners will bring into the country. It may be that those expectations are disappointed. Ticket sales in Europe have been sluggish so far and the experience of Germany in 2006 and Switzerland/Austria (European Cup) in 2008 show that there was no short-term break even given all the funds that had to be invested.

However, the positive long-term effect of the World Cup can hardly be overstated. South Africa has the opportunity to display itself as a showcase of a successful emerging market on the African continent. Over the last 10 years entrepreneurship has started to take off and is thriving, also and particularly in the black townships around the country. The number of USD-millionaires in South Africa has more than doubled to about 50′000 over the last three years and is expected to keep rising sharply over the next decade. Neighboring countries like Mozambique and Angola boast their own small Wirtschaftswunder which makes the region of Southern Africa also an interesting emerging market for Wealth Managers. Yet it seems that especially European Private Banks have only little interest in the black continent as they are busy hunting in the Middle East and Asia. It is mainly South African local banks, some UK players, Chinese banks and Arab banks who are trying to gain a foothold among the new entrepreneurial class in Africa. Speaking to successful business people in South Africa the brands of UBS, Deutsche Bank, or BNP Paribas are rarely household names. May be the World Cup could be an opportunity for the European Wealth Managers to scout this region on the rise. So, get up from your desks in Geneva, Frankfurt, Paris and Zurich, pick up some VIP tickets, invite  your clients and make the trip to Africa.

Tags: millionaires, south africa, world cup

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 8:42 pm and is filed under Wealth Management Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.