WatchFund buys 4 different (and sometimes overlapping) categories of investment-grade watches.

Category 1. Queue-cutting watches (we use connections and prior knowledge to order watches before they hit the market)

Category 2. Extreme limited editions (most of these pieces are allocated to VVIPs, most of them being watches that typically money can’t buy. It’s about access.)

Category 3. Provenance pieces(timepieces previously owned / worn by royalty, historical figures etc. All are unique pieces e.g. Napoleon’s carriage clock made by Breguet, Gandhi’s pocket watch made by Zenith….)

Category 4. Price advantage category (Certain watches that we can get at prices below retailers’ / distributors’ cost. Take for example, a Grande Complication from a boutique brand with an official RRP of $500,000 – usually no discount at all – but we get it one or two pieces at an unheard of 50% discount)

Sadly, 99.9% of watches out there are not investment grade i.e. you cannot buy it, wear it and sell it for a profit. Even if the retail price of the new model you bought has gone up after a few years, selling it for a higher price is a different story altogether. Retailers can take up to a 50% profit-margin on a sale and their distributors another 20-35% – making it practically impossible for everyday customers to do anything other than “spending” and “shopping”. In that sense, we’re a bit of a “limited edition” ourselves – because there are limits to how many investment-grade watches are currently out there.

We do of course! Just imagine us as a commodities fund – you don’t tell them what oil / sugar / soybean you want do you? We have to choose what watches are investment grade, and we’re aligned with the investors so we can’t survive if we can’t sell what we invested in for you.

WatchFund and its partners and networks have been connected to the very highest levels of the watch industry and watch-collecting circles for decades. With a worldwide, protected confidential database, WatchFund’s unusual “fluctuating AUM” in the double-digit millions makes WatchFund one of the biggest “single buyer decisions” in the worldwide watch arena.

There are so many factors involved that such a working investment system has never been done / successful before. Each and every watch purchased (even if it’s the same reference) is different, with even buy / sell timing and geographical location playing a part. For example, Brand ABC integrated hand-wound split-seconds chronograph serial number 1 is going to sell at a different price and speed from serial no. 4 in Singapore & China. The same reference again, serial number 8, will sell faster and at a higher price than number 5 in certain markets. Serial no. 0, the prototype – will also sometimes be for sale and sometimes not. It also comes down to the customer buying it. VIP? VVIP? Normal walk-in customer? Friend of the brand? Everyone has a different entry timeline / point / price. When we start talking about complications such as minute-repeaters – where every watch made in the same series sounds different if you really want to argue it – and the fact that a limited edition of 30 pieces can easily take 3 years to fully deliver in various markets in the world – it gets very very complicated.

Dominic did try! But he’s not a squillionaire. It got to the stage that he could not take all the investment-grade watches himself as an individual; and so he invited his friends to join the club! This eventually grew into the idea of getting friends to invest in watches, wear them, and sell them for more. You’re now going into a tried-and-tested system – Dominic would not ask you to do something that he did not do himself!

It can be just a few days! This cuts down on any issues of trust and creates maximum transparency with little or no waiting time from the get-go. If your amount is in the high double-digit to triple-digit millions, please contact us by email to get a timeline.

Let’s say that if you expected a 20% annualized return on your investment, you would be happy with WatchFund. No hard lock-down period or annual fees too!

Our worst performing collection did 11% annualized. This was a one-off – all others did better.

We had a piece that our client gained 216% annualized. However we would ask an investor not to expect our lowest and highest returns – these are anomalies and we would be quite surprised if we got these results again. Come into this expecting 20% and we’ll all be happy.

WatchFund gives you 2 options to sell at a net profit – the first offer may be rejected for free but the second offer must be accepted or a 10% close-out fee (based on the investor’s purchase price) will be levied. The good-karma business model of WatchFund means we make most of our fees when the clients profit (no annual, membership, subscription fees) – so this system has to be instituted to avoid the situation of the investors holding onto the watches for despite any number of offers of sale.

10% close-out fee based on your purchase price. If the watch was retailing at $150,000 and you got at $75,000 the close-out fee would be $7500.

Let’s compare various investment systems here:

1. Bank – you’re holding onto a piece of paper with the numbers $2,000,000 on it. The bank closes down, your piece of paper is now worth zero.

2. Stocks, typical funds, bonds etc. – you’re holding onto a piece of paper with the numbers $2,000,000 on it. The companies close down – your piece of paper is now worth zero.

3. WatchFund – you’re holding onto watches from companies sometimes hundreds of years old and these watches could retail at $4,000,000! You’ve now just been holding onto a greater, more important collection for the next generation. You could also just wait the recession out and sell later.

Wonderful. You’re like many of our clients. Like the watch industry – you’re going to love us even more. If you’re a watch lover, enthusiast, hardcore collector – you should really just go watch shopping with your heart and enjoy the hunt. You’ll lose a lot of money – but that shouldn’t bother you in the same way you don’t expect your clothes to sell for more after you’ve worn them right? You can also join the huge, growing group of people that buy from us so that people who like money more than watches can exit with profits!  WatchFund is a group of individuals who are financially experienced and astute  –looking for alternatives to potentially make money with a product that gives them the comfort and trust of “touch and feel” from day one. There’s nothing else in the world like watches. Just ask yourself whether you’d rather be holding onto a piece of paper or an important collection of verifiable hand-crafted mechanical masterpieces made by master watchmakers.

As a group of hundreds of years of collective experience to you: If you’re a person sitting on a lot of cash – there’s really nothing else on your body you can spend serious amounts of money on. Sooner or later, whether you like watches or not – you’re going to be buying watches. It could be for yourself, your spouse, your children, your business partners… but why buy a $500,000 watch that will cost you $500,000 and will lose you money when you can buy a $1,000,000 watch for $500,000 that could make you money? WatchFund.

Nope but we’re even better – we’re regulated by YOU. Typical funds need regulation largely because the way they use investors’ funds are quite opaque, and also investors are holding onto a piece of paper the whole time. With us, you are holding onto to your entire purchase of watches from day one, and you can even call up the watch boutiques to check the prices!

Yes we’re actually much, much more than that. In a typical fund structure, investors aren’t able to hold any of the watches, and they definitely won’t be able to use and enjoy the entire portfolio! Performance for typical funds of this nature is also based largely on valuation – whereas this is based entirely on actual offers of sale. This one-of-a-kind “private individual managed account” watch system enables us to give our clients the highest possible degree of trust and transparency.

Unfortunately here lies our limitation. We would never become a multi-billion dollar “fund” because we might not be able to find that many watches to buy and sell, so that it makes all involved parties happy.

When one party is not happy – we might have to stop fresh funds. In that sense, we’re a bit of a “limited edition” ourselves. If we cannot use your additional new funds comfortably, we’ll reject your funds and you’ll have to wait for space to open up. The amount we could buy changes from week to week – please contact us to get an idea of how much we can handle currently.

First of all, you’re not “frivolously spending” so to speak. You’re buying with a view to profit, and you’re doing that with a backed product that gives a great return. This is not shopping for luxury fancy froo-froo stuff but rather changing the way your money works for you – there’s a huge difference.

The sustainability angle is equally important though:-

In 1969, the Quartz watch was invented, ironically, by the Swiss – and that killed most of the worldwide mechanical watch industry. Master Watchmakers came home one day with no idea how to pay for their homes, their children’s education – their futures. They all told their children one thing:

“Don’t. Be. A. Watchmaker.”

In the decades that followed, skills were lost. Artisanal values were destroyed. Handwork and labours of love were drastically diminished. Although the watch industry in the 21^st century has more watchmakers coming out of school than 40 years ago, the top-level skills are still suffering because everyone still thinks buying a finely hand-crafted watch is just about “telling the time” or “status”.

It’s actually not. You’re preserving the craft. You’re keeping artisans alive. You’re honouring traditions. Remembering old world values. If we don’t do this now – you’re going to find that we’ll end up spending a damn lot of money in the future for crappier watches. And that would be terrible.