yacht difference between millionaire and billionaire

10 of the most impressive superyachts owned by billionaires

From a sailing yacht owned by a russian billionaire industrialist to the luxury launch of the patek philippe ceo, here are the best billionaire-owned boats on the water….

Words: Jonathan Wells

There’s something about billionaires and big boats . Whether they’re superyachts or megayachts, men with money love to splash out on these sizeable sea-going giants. And that all began in 1954 — with the big dreams of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

Onassis, keen to keep his luxury lifestyle afloat when at sea, bought Canadian anti-submarine frigate HMCS Stormont after World War II. He spent millions turning it into an opulent super yacht, named it after his daughter — and the Christina O kicked off a trend among tycoons. To this day, the world’s richest men remain locked in an arms race to build the biggest, fastest, most impressive superyacht of all. Here are 10 of our favourites…

Eclipse, owned by Roman Abramovich

Built by: Blohm+Voss of Hamburg, with interiors and exteriors designed by Terence Disdale. Launched in 2009, it cost $500 million (the equivalent of £623 million today).

Owned by: Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, the owner of private investment company Millhouse LLC and owner of Chelsea Football Club. His current net worth is $17.4 billion.

Key features: 162.5 metres in length / 9 decks / Top speed of 22 knots / Two swimming pools / Disco hall / Mini submarine / 2 helicopter pads / 24 guest cabins

Sailing Yacht A, owned by Andrey Melnichenko

Built by: Nobiskrug, a shipyard on the Eider River in Germany. The original idea came from Jacques Garcia, with interiors designed by Philippe Starck and a reported price tag of over $400 million.

Owned by: Russian billionaire industrialist Andrey Melnichenko, the main beneficiary of both the fertiliser producing EuroChem Group and the coal energy company SUEK. Though his current net worth is $18.7 billion, Sailing Yacht A was seized in Trieste on 12 March 2022 due to the EU’s sanctions on Russian businessmen.

Key features: 119 metres in length / 8 decks / Top speed of 21 knots / Freestanding carbon-fibre rotating masts / Underwater observation pod / 14 guests

Symphony, owned by Bernard Arnault

Built by: Feadship, the fabled shipyard headquartered in Haarlem in The Netherlands. With an exterior designed by Tim Heywood, it reportedly cost around $150 million to construct.

Owned by: French billionaire businessman and art collector Bernard Arnault. Chairman and chief executive of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company, his current net worth is $145.8 billion.

Key features: 101.5 metres in length / 6 decks / Top speed of 22 knots / 6-metre glass-bottom swimming pool / Outdoor cinema / Sundeck Jacuzzi / 8 guest cabins

Faith, owned by Michael Latifi

Built by: Similarly to Symphony above, also Feadship. With exteriors designed by Beaulieu-based RWD, and interiors by Chahan Design, it cost a reported $200 million to construct in 2017.

Owned by: Until recently, Canadian billionaire and part-owner of the Aston Martin Formula 1 Team , Lawrence Stroll. Recently sold to Michael Latifi, father of F1 star Nicholas , a fellow Canadian businessman with a net worth of just under $2 billion.

Key features: 97 metres in length / 9 guest cabins / Glass-bottom swimming pool — with bar / Bell 429 helicopter

Amevi, owned by Lakshmi Mittal

Built by: The Oceanco shipyard, also in The Netherlands. With exterior design by Nuvolari & Lenard and interior design by Alberto Pinto, it launched in 2007 (and cost around $125 million to construct).

Owned by: Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, chairman and CEO of Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steelmaking company. He owns 20% of Queen Park Rangers, and has a net worth of $18 billion.

Key features: 80 metres in length / 6 decks / Top speed of 18.5 knots / On-deck Jacuzzi / Helipad / Swimming Pool / Tender Garage / 8 guest cabins

Odessa II, owned by Len Blavatnik

Built by: Nobiskrug, the same German shipyard that built Sailing Yacht A . Both interior and exterior were created by Focus Yacht Design, and the yacht was launched in 2013 with a cost of $80 million.

Owned by: British businessman Sir Leonard Blavatnik. Founder of Access Industries — a multinational industrial group with current holdings in Warner Music Group, Spotify and the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat — he is worth $39.9 billion.

Key features: 74 metres in length / 6 guest cabins / Top speed of 18 knots / Intimate beach club / Baby grand piano / Private master cabhin terrace / Outdoor cinema

Nautilus, owned by Thierry Stern

Built by: Italian shipyard Perini Navi in 2014. With interiors by Rémi Tessier and exterior design by Philippe Briand, Nautilus was estimated to cost around $90 million to construct.

Owned by: Patek Philippe CEO Thierry Stern. Alongside his Gulstream G650 private jet, Nautilus — named for the famous sports watch — is his most costly mode of transport. His current net worth is $3 billion.

Key features: 73 metres in length / 7 guest cabins / Top speed of 16.5 knots / Dedicated wellness deck / 3.5 metre resistance pool / Underfloor heating / Jet Skis

Silver Angel, owned by Richard Caring

Built by: Luxury Italian boatbuilder Benetti. Launched in 2009, the yacht’s interior has been designed by Argent Design and her exterior styling is by Stefano Natucci.

Owned by: Richard Caring, British businessman and multi-millionaire (his wealth peaked at £1.05 billion, so he still makes the cut). Chairman of Caprice Holdings, he owns The Ivy restaurants.

Key features: 64.5 metres in length / Cruising speed of 15 knots / 7 guest cabins / Lalique decor / 5 decks / Oval Jacuzzi pool / Sun deck bar / Aft deck dining table

Lady Beatrice, owned by Frederick Barclay

Built by: Feadship and Royal Van Lent in 1993. Exteriors were created by De Voogt Naval Architects, with interiors by Bannenberg Designs. She cost the equivalent of £63 million to build.

Owned by: Sir David Barclay and his late brother Sir Frederick. The ‘Barclay Brothers’ had joint business pursuits including The Spectator , The Telegraph and delivery company Yodel. Current net worth: £7 billion.

Key features: 60 metres in length / 18 knots maximum speed / Monaco home port / Named for the brothers’ mother, Beatrice Cecelia Taylor / 8 guest cabins

Space, owned by Laurence Graff

Built by: Space was the first in Feadship’s F45 Vantage series , styled by Sinot Exclusive Yacht Design and launched in 2007. She cost a reported $25 million to construct.

Owned by: Laurence Graff, English jeweller and billionaire businessman. As the founder of Graff Diamonds, he has a global business presence and a current net worth of $6.26 billion.

Key features: 45 metres in length / Top speed of 16 knots / Al fresco dining area / Sun deck Jacuzzi / Breakfast bar / Swimming platform / Steam room

Want more yachts? Here’s the handcradfted, homegrown history of Princess…

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By SuperyachtNews 17 Jan 2018

The billionaires' and millionaires' markets

Using the example set by gyg and data from tar, we explore the superyacht industry's different markets….

At The Superyacht Forum 2017 , during the ‘Floating on the market’ keynote session, Remy Millott, CEO of GYG, which began floating on the AIM stock exchange in July 2017, spoke about the experience of educating investors on the difference between ‘the billionaires’ market’ and ‘the millionaires’ market,’ both of which exist within the larger superyacht sphere.

From an outsider’s perspective, and perhaps even from the perspective of some within the superyacht market, the difference is a novel or linguistic one. After all, ultra-high-net-worth individuals are defined by most as owning assets with a cumulative value of $30million or more. And yet, the billionaires’ and millionaires’ markets perform very differently in a superyacht context.

“Many of the investors that we sat down with, we had to convince them that we were not in the 25m market, the millionaires market, we had to convince them that we are operating in the billionaires’ market…[and] that it was a legitimate industry that they could invest in,” explained Millott. “The hardest thing was convincing them that we were weren’t part of the smaller end of the superyacht market that went through a lot of pain during the financial crisis…we had to defeat the preconceptions that the market we operate in is cyclical.”

In The Superyacht Annual Report 2018: New Build (TAR) the statistics clearly highlight the difference in the stability of the 70m-plus sector - the ‘billionaires’ market that Millott alludes to - and the sub-70m sectors. Unlike the 30-70m portion of the market, the 70m-plus sector has remained resilient, regardless of market fluctuations, including the well documented downturn that has occurred in the post-2008 Global Financial Crisis era. As a result, the large superyacht market arguably remains the most investable portion of the market because of the stability it has been able to prove year-on-year.

According to TAR, the 70m-plus sector has delivered an average of 11.8 superyachts annually since 2008, whereas the sub-70m portion of the market has delivered an average of 147.5 vessels annually. At first glance, you would think that the sector with highest delivery figures would be the most attractive to investors. However, when you consider that only 105 sub-70m vessels were delivered in 2017 and 10 70m-plus vessels were delivered in 2017, it is clear which market is the more consistent. Since 2008, the sub-70m market has been on a near continuous decline year-on-year, with only the dimmest flickers of recovery in anomalous years (2012 and 2016), whereas the 70m-plus sector has continued to perform as it has done, year-on-year, since 2008. Furthermore, the scale and value of these projects is exponentially larger, and requires significantly more human capital.

Part of GYG’s success in generating private equity investment and, latterly, going public, was that Millott and his team were able to prove that GYG’s market was the predictable and profitable 70m-plus billionaires’ market. Pinmar, GYG’s paint application business, works on vessels that are, on average, 72m for refit and 84m for new build, yielding an average vessel size of 78m.

Unlike the millionaires’ market, the billionaires’ market is far less susceptible to various market forces thanks in large to the robustness of each billionaire’s wealth profile and portfolio. By proving that its core business is not cyclical or likely to be affected by various broader economic market fluctuations, GYG has been able to clearly distinguish between the superyacht industry’s two separate markets and showcase that one may be more attractive to investors than the other.

Have you subscribed to the Superyacht intelligence Business Package 2018 , which includes 2018's New Build, Brokerage, Training & Recruitment and Marinas & Migration Annual Reports? Click here to get your copies.

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An entrepreneur who interviewed 21 billionaires says the key difference between them and millionaires is how they answer a simple question about money

• Billionaires are different from millionaires  in that they enjoy making money  more than they enjoy spending it , according to Rafael Badziag in his book  " The Billion Dollar Secret. "  
• Spending less than you make is the foundation to building wealth .
• From Warren Buffett to Lirio Parisotto, many billionaires have frugal habits.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .

Millionaires and billionaires may both be richer than the average person, but they're each in a group of their own.

The distinction between the two comes down to how they answer one question, according to Rafael Badziag in his book "The Billion Dollar Secret: 20 Principles of Billionaire Wealth and Success " : " What do you enjoy more, making money or spending it?"

Badziag, an entrepreneur and expert on the psychology of entrepreneurship, spent five years conducting face-to-face interviews with 21 self-made billionaire entrepreneurs around the world (defined as those with a net worth of at least $1 billion) and researching their lives and companies.

"The difference between financially successful people (millionaires) and financially super successful people (billionaires) boils down to the fact that the latter get pleasure making money, but don't enjoy spending it," he wrote. 

Billionaire businessmen Michal Solowow — the wealthiest person in Poland — and Lirio Parisotto — the wealthiest person in South America — both credited their savings habits to their financial success.

"You want to get rich? There's one way to do it: Spend less than you make. If you spend less and you accumulate, you get rich," billionaire Frank Hasenfratz told Badziag.

Read more : An entrepreneur who interviewed 21 billionaires says the same 6 habits helped make all of them successful

Frugality begets wealth

Spending less than you earn is a classic staple of building wealth . Saving and investing more money than you spend helps spark the power of compound interest , where the interest you earn on your money earns more interest over time.

Frugality — a commitment to saving, spending less, and sticking to a budget — is one of the characteristics most predictive of net worth, according to Sarah Stanley Fallaw, the director of research for the   Affluent Market Institute   and an author of  " The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth ."

"Spending above your means, spending instead of saving for retirement, spending in anticipation of becoming wealthy makes you a slave to the paycheck, even with a stellar level of income," she wrote.

Look at the famously frugal Warren Buffett, who still lives in the modest home in Omaha, Nebraska, that he  bought for $276,700 in 1958 (in today's dollars). He's never upgraded to a smartphone, pays $18 for a haircut, and spends no more than $3.17 on his daily McDonald's breakfast — even though his estimated net worth is $84.6 billion .

Watch: Warren Buffett, the third-richest person in the world, is also one of the most frugal billionaires. Here's how he makes and spends his fortune.

• Main content

Millionaire vs Billionaire – Beyond the Difference in the Number of Zeros

What is the difference between a billionaire and a millionaire? While making the distinction should be a no-brainer in theory, sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. That’s why we decided to take a closer look at the millionaire vs billionaire comparison and identify the key similarities and differences between these two groups of people.

We will also explore why becoming a billionaire is a much more difficult goal to achieve than becoming a millionaire. So stay tuned for more information!

Millionaire vs Billionaire: Definitions

Let’s start with the basics. A millionaire is an individual whose net worth is equal to or greater than one million dollars. This can be calculated by adding up all of the person’s assets and subtracting their debts. 

A billionaire, on the other hand, is a much more exclusive term — it refers to an individual whose net worth is equal to or greater than one billion dollars. This is a much higher threshold than a million and as such, there are far fewer billionaires in the world than millionaires.

In fact, there are only 2,668 billionaires in the world at present based on Forbes’ latest annual ranking, with the US accounting for 735 of those. 

In contrast, there are more than 20 million millionaires in the US alone. This means that there are greater chances of becoming a millionaire than a billionaire. Transitioning from being a millionaire to billionaire is not a given either.

How are billionaires different from millionaires?

So now that we know the meaning of each term, we already have an idea of the fundamental difference between a millionaire and a billionaire. But let’s not limit our knowledge there and consider some less obvious factors that make millionaires different from billionaires.

1. Time Required to Spend All of Their Money

Is there a better way to look at the difference between the just rich and the super-rich than estimating how much time each group needs to spend their money?

$1 Million Dollars

Let’s say you want to spend $1 million as quickly as possible. In order to do this, you’ll need to spend $1 each second for about 12 days. Yes, a million dollars that you may have saved up for years or even decades can all be done in just 12 days if you spend a single dollar per second.

$1 Billion Dollars

If you have $1 billion and want to spend it as quickly as possible, it will take you close to 32 years to spend all of it. Yes, that’s right — you will have over three decades to burn through a billion if you spend $1 per second.

2. Level of Power

You may live like a king for the rest of your life once you’ve amassed enough millions, but being a billionaire could give you the power of a king.

Let’s look at some examples to illustrate how powerful billionaires can be.

• Government sector. Did you know that a few billion dollars let you change a government policy? That’s right! Millionaires can contribute huge amounts of their wealth or fund an organized attempt to influence policymakers. However, only billionaires have the capability to direct the overall course of a government.
• Industrial sector. Having enough billions empowers an individual to influence the direction of an entire sector. To that end, they can buy one or several companies. 

3. Lifestyle 

If your net worth is $1 million, what kind of lifestyle can you have? What if it’s $1 billion instead?

According to experts, a 3% withdrawal rate could reasonably sustain a person’s life. So if you have a $1 million net worth, that means you’ll be able to withdraw $30,000 a year from your account. A million dollars will give you $49,000 in yearly income when Social Security of $19,000 is combined.

Let’s say you require assisted living in your later years. The current average costs for in-home or nursing care range from $94,000 to more than $100,000 per year. This means that you’ll be reducing the lifespan of your principal as you spend your capital faster than replenish it.

However, if you have a net worth of $1 billion, 3% of that will get you $30 million in annual income on your retirement. You could most likely live without filing for Social Security at that rate. 

With that said, you can’t help but wonder how to become a billionaire . But if you were not born to a wealthy family, getting there seems almost impossible.

4. Spending Tendencies

Both groups enjoy the finer things in life, whether it’s a luxurious home or a private jet.

However, the way they spend their money is another key billionaire vs millionaire distinction. For one, millionaires tend to be more frugal with their money. They may have expensive tastes, but they’re also more mindful of their spending.

Billionaires meanwhile are known for their lavish spending. They often have multiple homes and jets, and they aren’t afraid to flaunt their wealth. After all, they have 32 years to spend only a single of their billions if they spend $1 every second.

Who is the richest millionaire or billionaire?

Elon Musk, CEO and co-founder of Tesla, has been the richest person in the world since 2021, having a net worth of $273 billion, according to Investopedia. Aside from the electric vehicle company where he owns a 17% share, Musk is also the CEO and Chief Engineer of SpaceX which develops space launch rockets. He is also set to spend $44 billion of his fortune to acquire the microblogging platform Twitter.   

What is the difference between a million and a billion dollars?

When we compare $1 million vs $1 billion in terms of figures, it’s easy to say one has more zeros than the other. By ratio, it’s 1:1000 or $1 billion is 1000 $1 million. Here’s another way to illustrate the millionaire vs billionaire difference. One person with $1 billion is equivalent to 1000 individuals with $1 million each. 

There are many differences between a millionaire and billionaire, but the most notable ones include the power that comes with the amount of money they have and the kind of lifestyle their riches can provide. 

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