In 2020, as the world convulsed under COVID-19 and the global economy faced its worst recession since World War II, billionaires saw their riches reach new heights.
Now some are talking to their wealth managers about how to keep a hold of and consolidate their fortunes amid the global debris of the pandemic. Others are discussing how to pre-empt and navigate demands from governments, and the wider public, to pick up their share of the recovery costs.
"The stock market crashed a year ago, by July or so my portfolio was back where it was before, at the beginning of the year, and now it's far higher," said Morris Pearl, a former managing director at BlackRock who chairs Patriotic Millionaires, a U.S.-based group that believes rich individuals should do more to close the wealth gap.