Over the past 12 months, the concept of positive impact, which consists in ensuring that their business, investments and personal practices make the world better, has moved up the agenda for entrepreneurs. The report which polled over 2,700 multimillionaire entrepreneurs in 22 countries, handling a total wealth of USD 36 billion, highlighted that:

• 55% have declared they committed a proportion of their wealth to achieving socially responsible outcomes.
• 80% believe that entrepreneurship is the best way to generate a global or local impact in particular relating to help safeguard the environment (with 53% in China). In Europe clean energy is the most popular cause (35%) while in the US and the Middle East, job creation ranks top of the impact agenda (36% and 40%).
• Elite Entrepreneurs anticipate significant increases in their future use of investment funds (34%), start-up financing (34%), private equity (32%), equity funding (32%) and impact investing (29%).

“There is a rapid change of mindset, impacting the ways Elite Entrepreneurs invest their wealth. BNP Paribas Wealth Management recently broke the bar of €10 billion invested in responsible investments, which has grown tenfold in the past 6 years. This clearly demonstrates the growing appetite from our clients for these types of strategies.” explains Sofia Merlo, Co-CEO at BNP Paribas Wealth Management.

“Their investments can amplify their ambitions to create a better environment for the next generation while reflecting their values. The ‘millennipreneurs’ hold great wealth potential and will lead the way: impressively, 64% of them are already actively engaged in impact investing, particularly in terms of job creation”, underlines Vincent Lecomte, Co-CEO at BNP Paribas Wealth Management.

Regional variations
The Global Entrepreneur Survey has also highlighted regional variations. For France, 55% of respondents declared committing a portion of their wealth to responsible investments with the main areas being: sustainable and responsible investing (26%), crowd-funding (21%) and environmental investing (21%). The top causes French Elite Entrepreneurs aim to have an impact on are creating jobs (40%), safeguarding the environment (36%), and combating poverty (31%).

The 5 global profiles of Impact Entrepreneurs:
ULTRAPRENEURS – an entrepreneur with a net investable wealth in excess of USD25 million.

• 67% of Ultrapreneurs are Responsible Investors, with environmental and social business investments their most frequently used vehicles. They invest in this way to create jobs (41%), safeguard the environment (38%) and support the transition to clean energy (32%).

SERIALPRENEURS - an entrepreneur who owns or has established four or more operating companies.

• They are more focussed on using their wealth strategically to support other high-potential businesses: they allocate 15% of their portfolio to angel investments and private equity to fund new companies.

MILLENNIPRENEURS - an entrepreneur aged 35 or under

• 46% say they define their business success in terms of social impact, compared to 39% of all entrepreneurs. Despite this, a majority do not feel satisfied with their achievements in this area to date and identify social impact as a future business priority.

WOMEN ENTPRENEURS

• Women Entrepreneurs continue to outperform their male peers with a higher average net worth. They are more motivated than their male counterparts to hold ESG (Environmental, social & corporate governance) investments to ensure a positive impact, at 37% vs 33% for male.

BOOMERPRENEURS - Baby Boomer aged 55 or over.

• Boomerpreneurs take their social responsibilities seriously and are more assured than their younger peers that they have made a social impact during the 19 years on average since they first founded their business. 45% have an exposure to social and environmental investments with equity funds and environmental investments as favoured routes.

More information
o Discover the report on wealthmanagement.bnpparibas
o More findings on the “Voice of Wealth” app on the App Store or on Google Play Store
o #EliteEntrepreneurs