ÐÇÆÚÒ» [ 2010-1-18 13:41:31 | watches2009 ]   The City bonus-baggers and a tale of two halves DO YOU ever feel like you live in another country? Two magazines are sitting on my desk. One is StyleJournal, produced by The Wall Street Journal. In it, there is a watch costing 182,794 (Pounds 123,000). Apparently, the Cartier Tortue XL Tourbillon Chronomonopoussoir, for that is what it's called, "marries the highest technical requirements with a jeweller's aesthetic". Whatever, it's a watch. The other is the current edition of Country Life magazine. It contains a thumping 117 pages of property adverts. They include Heaven's Gate at Holmbury St Mary in Surrey. With five receptions, eight bedrooms, five bathrooms, a coach house, staff flat, swimming pool, formal and walled gardens and stables, it looks the real deal at Pounds 5.9 million. Or there's something a bit more modern at Hale in Hampshire. Occupying "one of the finest positions in the New Forest", it comprises six reception rooms, seven bedrooms, six bathrooms, a gym, swimming pool, tennis court, practice golf hole and putting green, stables and lakes (note the plural). It could be yours for Pounds 4.5 million. Or how about a steeland- glass palace for Pounds 3.65 million on the St George's Hill estate in Surrey (it's not so space- age that it doesn't have what the blurb charmingly describes as a "chauffeur's room"). Wading through the country estates, mansions and town houses is an exhausting process. If that's not bad enough, there's also an insert on Switzerland, with a further eight pages of chalets, houses and apartments. Who buys this stuff ? Putting aside Premiership footballers, the odd lottery-winner or someone who has sold their business or come into a fortune left to them in a Fake Frank Muller Watches will, what sort of people have such sums to burn? The answer, of course, is the City bonus-baggers. It's impossible to underestimate, since Big Bang and the influx of wallet-waving Americans into London in the late 1980s, the impact of the bonus culture on the top end of the luxury goods, art and property markets. Like many, I share the disdain for the jaw-dropping sums that are handed out, and question whether their recipients deserve them. But there's no denying their economic significance. Tim Wright, residential partner of Knight Frank in Kensington, reckons that for properties of Pounds 3 million and over, buyers are either from the financial sector or from overseas. Says Wright: "We start getting calls from women in November, saying 'I want to buy a house, my husband is getting a bonus'. When I ask them how much, they say, 'I don't know, send round details for Pounds 5 million'." The difficulties that beset the rest of us are of little consequence. Mortgages and chains have no bearing. "They're financially astute," says Wright, "so they try to buy and sell at the same time." Fake IWC But it doesn't matter if they don't. "Their bonuses are of such size they can go into the market and choose whatever they want. Often we have two people competing for one of the best houses when suddenly one will produce another half a million in cash - it's not an issue." Listening to Wright, I'm struck by the thought that not only is theirs a totally different mental and financial space but it's also one confined entirely to them. When they grow tired of their new purchases, who will take them off their hands? Those who are now their juniors in Goldman, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanl Other articles: http://blog.0731fdc.com/?uid-88659-action-viewspace-itemid-4665 http://www.hslx.net/Blog/View/?436 ä¯ÀÀ(1800) | »Ø¸´(320)
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