Collectibles company Stanley Gibbons is poised to expand into Hong Kong to capitalize on the growing passion for stamp collecting among wealthy Chinese.
The UK company sees China as a key market and revealed on Friday that it could soon open an investment office in Hong Kong, the main center for philatelic dealing in the country. A similar move into Switzerland is also being considered.
Closer to home, it hopes for a big boost from the royal wedding next month and the 2012 Olympic games in London.
Photo: EPA
“The market is very strong over there [China], there are a number of old wealthy collectors and there are new people coming onto the market who are looking to invest in a part of China’s history. The same in India where the new wealthy are looking to buy back some of India’s history and stamps are a part of it,” company secretary Richard Purkis said.
BANNED TO BOOMING
There are 20 million collectors in China and 50,000 government-sponsored philatelic societies. While it was illegal to collect stamps under former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), since his death in 1976 there has been a boom in collecting.
Photo: EPA
“The Chinese market is expected to represent a key growth area benefiting from our development of internal expertise in rare stamps from China and from the key trading relationships built during 2010,” the firm said.
It started selling stamps and collectibles in China last year, the biggest stamp market in the world.
“Stanley Gibbons is the leading brand name in a market that is becoming increasingly global,” Peel Hunt analyst Charles Hall said.
The firm has relaunched its Web site and a new eBay-style site where collectors can trade stamps is due to go live later this year. Stanley Gibbons, which owns Fraser’s Autographs and Benham First Day Covers, is also beefing up its presence in the US, still the biggest collectibles market in the world.
ROYAL BOOST
Prince William and Kate Middleton’s big day is set to lead to a surge in sales of first day covers and other commemorative collectibles at the group’s recently acquired Benham business. A similar boost is expected from the London Olympics in 2012.
The wedding and the Olympics, along with prospects in China, added to the firm’s optimism, which noted that the market for rare stamps and signatures remains resilient, with both the GB30 Rarities Index and the Autograph 100 index rising 7 percent last year. Stanley Gibbons is still on the lookout for acquisitions in stamps and other collectibles. It made profits before tax and exceptional charges of ￡4.5 million (US$7.2 million) last year, up 8 percent on the previous year, and lifted its annual dividend by 10 percent to ￡0.055.
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