4.9 million wealthy people in Europe

There are now 4.9 million 'wealthy' individuals in Europe, a report claims.

These are high net worth individuals, people who have more than £18,471 (€30,044) worth of liquid assets.

They collectively have assets of £2.03 trillion (3.3 trillion), according to Datamonitor.

Their number has increased by around 19% a year between 1997 and 2001, says Datamonitor.

But in the UK, Germany and Nordic regions the number of wealthy people shrunk slightly during 2001 due to stock market falls.

Despite this Germany still has the highest number of wealthy people, with 1.2 million high net worth individuals who collectively hold £517.8bn (€842.3bn) in liquid assets.

The UK has the second highest number, followed by France, and with Germany these three countries account for more than 68% of Europe's wealthy people.

The group estimates that by 2006 there will be 6.8 million high net worth individuals in Europe with assets worth £3.02 trillion (€4.9 trillion).

But the group warns the supply of services aimed at the wealthy had far outstripped demand.

Callum Dyce, author of the report, said: "Supply of wealth services has outstripped demand, with resulting poor performance for wealth managers and in some cases business failures."