The world's rich saw the growth of their fortunes slow sharply last year as the collapse of tech and media stocks wiped out a third of new dot.com millionaires, according to a new survey.

The personal wealth of the world's millionaires rose by 6 per cent in 2000 after an 18 per cent surge in 1999, although this came against the background of a 375 per cent surge since 1986, the report by US bank Merrill Lynch and consultants Cap Gemini Ernst & Young said.

Some 80,000 of the 260,000 dot.com millionaires created last year lost their fortunes, however, after tech and media stocks went into sharp decline from March, according to the annual World Wealth Report.

Despite the plunge in equity markets, the total wealth of high net worth individuals - defined as people worth more than $1 million (€1.14 million) each, excluding real estate - grew 6 per cent to $27 trillion in 2000, from $25.5 trillion a year earlier.

The report said the number of high net worth individuals worldwide grew 2.9 per cent to 7.2 million in 2000.