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Pakistani super-rich appear more consumption-oriented than their peers in India and the West, with a stronger appetite for lavish lifestyles. Rather than owning businesses abroad, they invest in multiple passports and residential properties across the Middle East, Far East and the West.
Locally, they prefer real estate as a store of wealth. Charitable giving is significant, but largely personal rather than institutional, while only a tiny share of annual wealth gains flow into businesses or capital markets.
Informal and on-record discussions with tycoons, bankers, brokers, executives, corporate and tax lawyers, and accountants produced varied views. Most respondents saw Pakistan’s elite as distinct from their Indian and Western counterparts, particularly in how they deploy annual wealth gains. Others dismissed such distinctions as superficial, arguing that similarities among the wealthy across borders outweigh differences, which exist but are not defining.
A distinguished executive, who requested anonymity, estimated that Pakistan’s ultra-rich spend about 50 per cent of annual wealth gains on luxury consumption — cars, private aircraft and yachts, designer goods, jewellery, holidays, clubs and parties. Another 20pc goes into property, 10pc to charity and faith-related spending, and just 20pc into securities and businesses. Elsewhere, he said, over 70pc is reinvested in equities and businesses, with the remainder going to succession planning, legal affairs, art and lifestyle maintenance.
