The very rich increasingly invest their money in tangible assets, mostly because traditional investments yield only very little. Their problem? Where do you store your Aston Martin vintage car or Rothko? Liechtenstein is putting the finishing touches to a giant vault to satisfy the demand.
For people familiar with Liechtenstein miniature standards, the size of the building is amazing, 20 meters wide, 65 meters long, with five stories, two of which are – fittingly for a vault – underground. Stabiq Treasure House provides high-tech security in «exquisite surroundings», according to the company's brochure.
The building is close to completion, tucked away in a place called Eschen, which has some 4,300 inhabitants in lush green surroundings at the foot of the Three Sisters Mountain.
Security and elegance befitting the seriously rich combine in a very special way. The company offers room for goods of all sorts across 6,000 square meters – including gold, classic cars, art and coins, antiquities and yes, even wine.
Cars, Coins, Wine
Stabiq Treasure House is filling a void as more and more super rich invest in tangible goods in times of low interest rates and instability on the stock exchange. Its offer is for people who find it difficult for practical or insurance reasons to store their treasures (at home).
For obvious reasons, classic bank vaults don't cater for many of these goods, which is why the duty-free zones offered their space for the rich to rent. And good business it is: A storage of 10 square meters can easily cost 20,000 Swiss francs a year. For this you get proper lighting, climate control and the space can usually be used as a show room too. Switzerland has six such stores in duty-free zones, but demand is much bigger, as finews.ch has already reported.
«Flexible Taxation Possibilities»
Stabiq Treasure House now brings this service to Liechtenstein. The advantage of these storages is that the owners of the goods don't have to pay import duties and tax. The Swiss Customs Authority, which also covers the principality, can have a look at what is stored, but no other, foreign authority.
«The Open Customs Warehouse provides very flexible taxation possibilities for the acquisition, storage and sale of valuable objects,» is how Stabiq Treasure House chose to put it.
The man behind the new vault is Norbert Seeger (pictured), a known lawyer from Liechtenstein. He needed space for his Rolls Royce collection and approached Wolfgang Marxer, the owner of Argus security firm. They came up with the idea to build a vault not just for cars, but goods of all sorts.
