Millennials around the world are swimming in cash after two summers starved of summer holidays, analysts report, and they are looking for new opportunities to invest in an era of zero or negative interest rates at the banks, cryptocurrencies fluctuating wildly and stock markets back at pre-pandemic levels.
In South Korea, the Korean Herald reports that young retail investors want to mix business with pleasure by investing in unconventional assets, and that is fuelling demand for fractional ownership unicorn watches from the likes of Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet where owning a slice of a prestige timepiece is something of a status symbol.
Watches also deliver predictable returns if fractional ownership firms can secure the right pieces at retail prices.
One company specialising in this emerging sector is Piece, which promotes the fun to be had in investing in Rolex watches.
Millennials and Gen Z consumers (a group beginning to be called Gen MZ) can invest between 100,000 won and 20 million won (£63 to £12,500) in Rolex watches that they will never wear, and cash out six months later.
Piece closed its first round of investment in April with 11 Rolex watches including a 2020 Oyster Perpetual, a Daytona, a Datejust with a green dial and a 2020 Submariner.
The company has already sold the package of watches and investors have earned a profit of around 23%.
Pre-startup London-based Koia is advertising its first investment opportunities and collecting names for opportunities in watches, wine and trading cards.
WATCHPRO signed up this morning and received an e-mail saying we are #2399 on its waiting list.
Iris ten Teije, co-founder of Koia, says the business recently announced its angel investment round with Gary Clarke, ex-Head of Global Equities at Blackrock, Gary Dolman, co-founder of Monzo and André Mohamed, co-founder of Freetrade supporting the funding raise.
“We’ll be pushing out a press release soon to publicly announce our launch and first asset sale,” Mr Teije added.
