Top 3 regrets of Middle East millionaires

For ordinary people, being rich is an aspirational lifelong dream. Who doesn’t want a fleet of cars at the door-step, a mansion to live in, luxury brands to use and exotic holidays to pamper oneself?

They have it all, so they must be really smart to take the right decisions at the right time, correct? Some are born with a silver spoon in their mouth whereas some make it up the hard way up – but each individual makes mistakes in life and financial misjudgement and errors are a part of the game, even for the super-rich.

Just as we push our retirement plans well into our thirties so do super-rich fail to plan early in life. In this case, they are no different from what an ordinary individual does in life.

According to a new survey, high-net-worth individuals’ top financial regret is not having put in place a regularly reviewed personal financial plan earlier in life.

The deVere Group asked a sample of its clients in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the US who have investable assets of more than Dh5.58m (£1m or equivalent), “what is your number one financial regret?” 57 per cent said not devising a reviewable strategy for their personal finances sooner.

The second biggest financial regret was not consistently scrutinising personal investments, just as the case may seem for the average citizen. How often do we go back to our income and expenditure sheet and look for loopholes and try to fix the problem? The ultra-wealthy may have more money but they also commit the same kind of mistake. Eighteen per cent of the participants regretted not regularly assessing the performance of their investments.

“The survey highlights how high-net-worth individuals regret having not scrutinised their personal investments more thoroughly and regularly in the past. This suggests that they have previously made some costly mistakes by not keeping a closer watch over their investments which can, of course, always go down as well as up – and very quickly, especially in times of increased volatility,” said a spokesperson of the company.

Well, the third is taking on too much unnecessary debt. The survey highlighted that “13 per cent regretted accumulating unnecessary debt.”

Another 12 per cent cited other regrets, including not saving enough to fund their children’s or grandchildren’s education or not having built a large enough estate to leave to their heirs.

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