The big difference between wealth acquired through buying and wealth realised through selling
You can become wealthy either by buying or by selling. But those who build their wealth by investing in their own business, consolidating and developing it, project their growth into the future and generate a ripple effect of prosperity around them, because they take on staff, provide opportunities for professional development, work with suppliers, develop skills, support supply chains and create related economic activity.
Those who become rich by selling, on the other hand, capitalise on value that has already been created. There is, of course, nothing wrong with selling a business, but from that point onwards it becomes interesting to understand what happens to the wealth that has been released and, above all, whether that wealth will continue to generate new economic activity or simply be transformed into passive financial assets.
Italia is an extraordinarily wealthy country and, in 2026, ranks sixth in the world in terms of the number of billionaires. However, when looking at the vast fortunes being amassed around the world, there is one difference that deserves attention. In the US and Asia, we are increasingly seeing enormous fortunes built up in just a few years because individuals are establishing businesses that did not previously exist, often by developing new models and technologies, backed by massive amounts of capital; and often these individuals, as well as investing, buy, merge and develop companies to the point of creating global groups.
In Italia and across Europe, however, dynastic and family wealth continues to play a significant role and, above all, a very substantial proportion of the new liquidity generated by entrepreneurial families will come, in the coming years, precisely from the sale of their businesses. Pictet and the Politecnico di Milano have estimated that by 2035, a large number of Italian businesses could be sold, generating around €346 billion for the families that own them.
Enormous wealth will be generated through sales, and it will be interesting to see how much of this monetisation of productive value will succeed in generating further wealth through investment and acquisitions. And, even more interestingly, it is worth asking how much new wealth could be unlocked by merging, developing or listing companies without necessarily selling them to foreign buyers.
