This will not be familiar to listeners of Radio 4’s Whingers’ Corner, broadcast in Britain each morning at 5.45am. But cows are considered a hot new investment – in France. From the NYT:
For Pierre Marguerit, 60, cows make a safe, secure investment, allowing for long-term growth from a renewable resource. The cow contracts are hardly new, but go back to Richard the Lionheart; the French word for livestock, “cheptel,” is the root for “capital.”
Apparently, M. Marguerit is promising investors in his cattle investment firm a post-tax return of 4 to 5 per cent from “natural growth” – the sale of calves.
Such is the popularity of the idea that his business grew 40 per cent in 2008 and has practically doubled so far this year.
Right now there are said to be 37,000 cows under contract in France, with M. Marguerit putting the potential market at maybe 6m head across Europe as a whole.
A typical couple will buy 10 to 20 dairy cows for about $1,700 each and can decide to sell the offspring each year or keep them as additional “capital.” “At this difficult time, it’s a much better investment than real estate and much more tangible than the stock market,” Mr. Marguerit said.