Ultimate status symbol? The ‘billionaire’s handshake’ watch

investmentnews.com:

A Richard Mille Co. watch is a powerful symbol of wealth for anyone who’s in-the-know enough to recognize its familiar contours.

The French company produces only about 5,300 a year, which cost an average of $250,000. Designed to withstand high gravitational forces, they’re worn by athletes at Formula One races, golf tournaments and yachting regattas. They also grace the wrists of musicians including Pharrell Williams and Ice-T.

It’s easy to spot a Richard Mille in the wild: Many of them take a tonneau, or rounded rectangle, shape—frequently with transparent dials so the intricate and precisely finished guts are on display. They’re brash, original and made from high-end materials such as titanium and a proprietary version of carbon fiber. In a nod to its ruggedness, a ring of screws is often left visible along the watch’s outer ring, or bezel. “Those screws have been used to hold the case together in the past, but now they are more for aesthetic purposes,” says Craig Karger, founder and owner of Wrist Enthusiast.

In a little more than two decades, Richard Mille has come out of nowhere to crack the top six watch brands by sales, with revenue rising 15% in 2022, to 1.3 billion Swiss francs ($1.5 billion), according to a 2023 Morgan Stanley report. By comparison, Audemars Piguet—founded in 1875—makes 50,000 watches per year at an average price of $51,000 each, with $2.27 billion in annual sales in 2022, according to the report.

“While the Richard Mille Brand, which was founded in 2001, had no legacy, its founders had a very clear vision,” the Morgan Stanley report says. “Its success over the past two decades does not have an equivalent in the Swiss watch industry.”

This summer has been a whirlwind of brand events and