Can Birkin & Kelly work as alternative investments?

An 11-page report on Hermès Birkin and Kelly bags as alternative investments. It examines Christie's auction results, 547 TheRealReal listings, LUXUS's published results, and how purchase discounts, trading costs and selling time affect returns.

Research by Takuya Shimano, E9 Technologies.

Transcript

1. ALTERNATIVE ASSET RESEARCH Can Birkin & Kelly work as alternative investments? A handbag fund reports a 34% net return. Where did it come from, and can an investor repeat it?
2. CAN BIRKIN & KELLY WORK AS ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS? BACKGROUND | WHY A FUND EXISTS Money alone cannot buy a Birkin, and an investment fund has built its pitch on that scarcity LUXUS, a New York firm backed by Christie's, buys Birkins and Kellys for accredited investors. Why Birkin and Kelly: the fund's explanation 01 02 Money alone cannot buy one Buys Hermès allocates Birkins and Kellys to clients with a purchase history. You cannot walk into a store and buy one. from consumers and resellers, not from Hermès Supply is capped while demand grows LUXUS says this produces durable price appreciation. Hermès also raises its prices every year. 03 How the fund trades Sells through resale marketplaces and auction houses such as 1stDibs, Farfetch and Sotheby’s Popular sizes resell above the boutique price A new Togo Birkin 25 costs $13,500 at the boutique and $25,000-30,000 second-hand if unused. Sources: LUXUS FAQ · LUXUS legal · Forbes (Nov 2025) · WWD (Oct 2025) · Sotheby's (Mar 2026) 02
3. CAN BIRKIN & KELLY WORK AS ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS? BACKGROUND | THE CLAIM Its first fund reports a 34% net return; nine published sales made 21-49% after 0-256 days 34% $1M, 36 bags ~5% a year net return reported for the first fund first fund, 2025. Nine had sold by Oct 2025, at 41% gross price rise over the past decade, per Christie's head of handbags How the fund says it makes money 01 Buy below market through resellers' networks of consignors 02 LUXUS's published sales: return and days held Prices rise Hermès quotas and its consistent price increases 50% 03 40% Sell well pick the venue and timing for each bag 30% 20% Sold the day they were bought: 26.5% and 28.5% 10% 0% 0 50 100 150 200 250 Days held Each dot is one bag, as published by LUXUS. Fund, and gross or net, not stated. Sources: Forbes (Nov 2025) · WWD (Oct 2025) · LUXUS offerings · LUXUS FAQ. Company-reported, unaudited 03
4. CAN BIRKIN & KELLY WORK AS ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS? APPROACH Five checks of whether Birkin and Kelly bags make a sound investment WHAT TO CHECK WHY IT MATTERS TO AN INVESTOR WHAT WE MEASURE 1 Do prices rise while you hold? Holding pays only if prices rise. The fund cites Hermès rationing supply. Christie's New York auction medians, 2022-2026 (98 lots) 05 2 Do the bags you buy hold their value? If scarcity is the source of value, it shows as prices above the boutique price. Auction and asking prices against 2026 boutique prices, by size 06 3 Does a return survive trading costs? Buying below market is the fund's first lever; fees decide how much of it is kept. Return by purchase discount, before fees and through an auction 07 4 Can you sell when you need to? Capital is tied up until a bag sells. Fund investors are paid at the end of the fund’s life. 547 TheRealReal listings tracked for 113 days 08 5 How do bags compare with other illiquid assets? An alternative competes with the illiquid assets investors already hold. Trading costs and exits for art, US houses and PE fund stakes 09 Approach: E9 Technologies. LUXUS levers from the LUXUS FAQ. PAGE 04
5. CAN BIRKIN & KELLY WORK AS ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS? CHECK 1 OF 5 | DO PRICES RISE WHILE YOU HOLD? Not steadily: Birkin auction medians have swung since 2022 while the boutique price rose every year Christie's New York auction prices by year, before the buyer's premium (98 lots) $30k Meanwhile Hermès raised the boutique Birkin 25 price every year, from $10,100 to $13,500. Christie’s head of handbags also notes a post-pandemic correction. n=1 Birkin 25 $19,000 $20k Boutique B25 $13,500 Birkin 35 $13,500 Birkin 30 $11,000 $10k At the 5% a year Christie’s cites, the 85 days LUXUS’s published sales were held on average add about 1%. Two of them sold the day they were bought, at 26.5% and 28.5%. $0k 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 Dots: lots. Diamonds: medians. Lots per year, 2022-2026: Birkin 25: 1, 3, 4, 8, 3. Birkin 30: 7, 4, 4, 8, 5. Birkin 35: 6, 7, 7, 27, 4. Sources: Christie's New York results, 12 auctions Jun 2022-Sep 2026; hammer = published price / (1 + buyer's premium), 26% for Jun 2022-Jun 2023 (p. 11). Boutique prices: Sotheby's Birkin price history (Jan 2026), start-of-year US prices. 05
6. CAN BIRKIN & KELLY WORK AS ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS? CHECK 2 OF 5 | DO THE BAGS YOU BUY HOLD THEIR VALUE? Auction medians sit above the boutique price only for the small sizes 2026 boutique price vs auction prices (Dec 2023-Sep 2026) and asking prices (Feb 2026), Togo leather AUCTION VS RETAIL ASKING VS RETAIL Birkin 25 n=16 +33% +104% Birkin 30 n=18 -16% +34% Birkin 35 n=43 -42% -17% Kelly 25 n=10 +13% Kelly 28 n=3 +18% $0k Hermès boutique 2026 Christie's median $10k $20k $30k TheRealReal asking median Auction price: the hammer price, which the seller receives before commission. Kelly 32 and 35 are not shown: no current boutique price was found. A Birkin 35 costs more than a Birkin 25 at the boutique ($16,300 vs $13,500) but sells for about half as much at auction. Among bags up to three years old: Birkin 25 48% above its boutique price, Birkin 30 7% above (2 lots), Birkin 35 8% below. Sources: Christie's results, 103 lots with each auction's buyer's premium backed out; TheRealReal Togo-leather listings, Feb 27, 2026; Hermès 2026 US prices from Sotheby's (Sep 2026) and PurseBop (Jan 2026). Method: p. 11. 06
7. CAN BIRKIN & KELLY WORK AS ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS? CHECK 3 OF 5 | DOES A RETURN SURVIVE TRADING COSTS? With flat prices, the return comes from the purchase discount, less fees; at auction, 30% off only breaks even Return on a bag bought below its resale price and sold at that price Fees eat the discount +0% Bought at resale value -30% At auction, a bag bought at the resale price has to sell 42% higher just to break even. +11% 10% below -22% +25% 20% below A 25% discount earns +33% before fees, and -6% through an auction. -12% +43% 30% below +0% -30% Before fees -20% -10% 0% +10% +20% +30% +40% Individual via auction: 28% to buy, 10% to sell Formula: return = (1 - seller fee) / [(1 - discount)(1 + buyer fee)] - 1. Christie's New York buyer's premium 28% on the first $2m from Sep 1, 2026; seller commission assumed at 10% (Sotheby's 2024 standard rate). Excludes storage, insurance, shipping, fund fees and holding time. Scenario, not observed trades. 07
8. CAN BIRKIN & KELLY WORK AS ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS? CHECK 4 OF 5 | CAN YOU SELL WHEN YOU NEED TO? About half of the listings were marked sold within 113 days; the premium size was marked sold least often Share of 547 TheRealReal Birkin listings marked sold at least once 100% Marked sold within no observations Apr 7-Jun 4 38 days / 113 days All listings 29% / 54% 75% n=547 | asking $19,300 50% Birkin 35 61% Birkin 25 All 547 54% Birkin 30 51% Birkin 25 44% 19% / 44% n=146 | asking $27,000 Birkin 30 29% 29% / 51% 25% n=175 | asking $20,000 Birkin 35 32% / 61% 0% n=145 | asking $13,500 0 38 60 98 113 Days since February 27, 2026 Of the 155 listings never marked sold and still online on June 20, 93 had cut their asking price (median -5.6%). Source: TheRealReal listing observations on 51 days, Feb 27-Jun 20, 2026 (no observations Apr 7-Jun 4; sales in that gap appear on Jun 5). Birkin only, all leathers; Birkin 25/30/35 cover 466 listings. Sold is the website label; listings removed without it count as unsold (98). Sold labels drop out of the Jun 19-20 snapshots, so the last days may be undercounted. Sale prices are not published. 08
9. CAN BIRKIN & KELLY WORK AS ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS? CHECK 5 OF 5 | HOW DO BAGS COMPARE WITH OTHER ILLIQUID ASSETS? A bag costs as much to trade as a painting and can wait months for a buyer ASSET ROUND-TRIP TRANSACTION COST TIME OR PRICE TO EXIT SOURCE Birkin / Kelly At auction: about 30% of the price paid (28% premium on top, an assumed 10% seller fee) TheRealReal listings: 29% marked sold within 38 days, 54% within 113 days This report Fine art at auction Same 28% buyer’s premium at Christie’s and Sotheby’s; seller terms negotiated (Sotheby’s flat 10% in 2024) Waits for the next scheduled auction Christie's, Sotheby's US house Agent commission and closing costs, negotiated Homes that sold: median 33 days on market (Sep 2026) NAR Private equity fund stake No fee schedule; the buyer sets the price Sold at 87% of NAV on average (H1 2026); buyout 91%, real estate 68% Jefferies Buyers pay the same 28% premium on a bag as on a painting, because the same auction houses sell both. Seven in ten bag listings had not been marked sold after 38 days, and almost half after 113 days. Sources: Christie's buyer's premium (Sep 2026); The Art Newspaper on Sotheby's fees (Dec 2024); NAR existing-home sales (Oct 13, 2026); Jefferies Global Secondary Market Review (Jul 2026). Bag figures track listings online on Feb 27; house figures cover homes that sold. 09
10. CAN BIRKIN & KELLY WORK AS ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS? ANSWER Holding a bag is not an investment; a handbag fund's result depends on its manager's buying LUXUS's nine published sales: what holding adds, and what they earned BETA | HOLDING ≈ 1% What the 5% a year Christie's cites adds over the 85 days LUXUS's published sales were held. At that rate, an individual trading at auction needs over seven years to earn back the fees. What would improve the economics of holding 1 Resale prices follow Hermès’s yearly price rises again. ALPHA | THE TRADES ≈ 30 pts The nine sales returned 31% on average, about 30 points more than 5% a year explains. Two sold on the day the bag was bought, at 26.5% and 28.5%, with no holding at all. LUXUS itself: the opportunity lies in which bags to buy, what to pay, and when and where to sell. For an investor Investing in a handbag fund is a bet on the manager, not on the bags. Judge it like any manager: results on all 36 bags, not only the first 9; the fees; and whether it can keep buying below market as the fund grows. Sources: LUXUS, Oct 5, 2026 · LUXUS offerings · Forbes (Nov 2025). Analysis of the Christie's and TheRealReal samples and the fee scenario on page 7. LUXUS figures are company-reported 2 Trading costs fall from 30% of the price paid to a few percent. 3 Bags sell within weeks rather than months. 10
11. APPENDIX | SOURCES AND METHODS Data, definitions and calculations Christie's auction results TheRealReal listings Returns and fees 12 New York online handbag auctions, Jun 2022-Sep 2026. 2,743 catalogue lots screened; 133 sold lots of standard Togo Birkin 25/30/35 and Retourne Kelly 25/28/32/35 with gold or palladium hardware. Special editions, mixed materials and bundles excluded; one unsold lot. Hammer = published price / (1 + buyer's premium). From Dec 2023 (103 lots): each auction's published schedule, 26-28%. Jun 2022-Jun 2023 (30 lots): 26%, the only rate at which every published price resolves to a whole $500 bid. 547 Birkin bag listings for sale on Feb 27, 2026, all leathers, HAC and Shoulder variants included. Checked on 51 days to Jun 20; no observations Apr 7-Jun 4, so sales in that gap appear on Jun 5. Sold: marked sold at least once; the Jun 19-20 snapshots lack sold labels. Listings that disappeared without one count as unsold (98). Asking prices are list prices, not sale prices. Original listing dates are unknown, so days count from Feb 27. Return = (1 - s) / [(1 - d)(1 + b)] - 1, with an unchanged resale price. d: purchase discount from the resale price; b: buyer’s premium; s: seller commission. Individual: b = 28% (Christie’s New York from Sep 1, 2026, first $2m); s = 10% (Sotheby’s flat rate in 2024; now negotiated). Before fees: b = s = 0. Tax, shipping, insurance, storage, fund fees and holding time are excluded. LUXUS figures are company-reported and unaudited. Christie's: buyer's premium Sotheby's: Birkin prices Data collected from public pages; no paid data used. Sources checked October 15, 2026. Analysis: E9 Technologies. LUXUS: FAQ TheRealReal 11