Now There's A Hedge Fund That Invests In The Most Expensive Watches In The World

Date: Friday, March 25, 2011
Author: Courtney Comstock and Leah Goldman, Business Insider

People have been paying so much for watches recently that now there are a few hedge funds dedicated to investing in them.

We're just in the beginning stages of a "cycle of interest" in watches, say the founders of Precious Time, a watch hedge fund.

The funny thing is, the fund has only raised enough money (€6 million) to buy about 4 of the world's most expensive watches. (Of course we don't know when they started. But it says something about the price of watches.)

We don't know which watches Precious Time invests in, or if they're just using those as an indicator and assuming that because some people will pay $2 million, others will pay $200,000. But the rare ones are the watches commanding the really high prices year after year. The rare Patek Philippes, the watches owned by famous people, etc.

Sidenote: The new watch hedge fund is hilariously taking their strategy just as seriously as any global macro or long/short equity fund would.

But it's tiny right now. “By early March, we had raised €6 million for the first quotation and are looking to grow about €100 million to €250 million,” Ms. Mascherin told the Wall Street Journal. “Our objective is to generate 15 percent returns per year in the next few years,” she added.

Composition of the fund:

70% vintage,  30% modern
80% complications, 20% simple mechanicals
50% in Patek Philippe, 30%t in other top brands, like Breguet, Rolex,
Audemars Piguet, Lange & Söhne, Vacheron Constantin and Cartier
50% gold, 35% steel, and 15% platinum