In 2009, at the beginning of the recovery, the overall wealth of the world's 10 million millionaires and billionaires grew 18.9 percent, according to a report by Merrill Lynch and the Paris-based consultancy Capgemini. The wealth of this group had already approached its 2007 peak by the end of 2010. The world's top 1 percent held 44 percent of global wealth in 2010, according to Credit Suisse. That was up slightly from 2000, when the top 1 percent owned 40 percent of global assets, according to a the World Institute for Development Economics Research.