George Flo’s Heritage Club already holds AED8m in watches to unlock liquidity

George Flo built The Heritage Club because he says many Dubai entrepreneurs and professionals have substantial value sitting on their wrists, yet very few practical ways to access it without selling the watch outright. In other words: the watch does not need to leave your life to become cashflow. Flo is betting that a buy-back structure can bridge that gap.

The headline number is the proof point The Heritage Club is already custodian of more than AED8 million worth of client assets, reflecting what it describes as strong early demand for short-term liquidity solutions backed by luxury watches. Transactions, according to the company, range from AED25,000 to AED2.5 million, and the buy-back option can be exercised within an agreed 30 or 60-day period at a pre-determined price. That timeline and size matter if you are an investor, business owner, or dealer that needs money quickly but does not want the long-term brand and sentimental value of parting with a specific watch.

So what is the actual mechanism? The Heritage Club purchases the watch outright, but the owner receives a contractual right to buy it back within the agreed window. The company describes a process that starts with authentication by specialists. After funding is provided, the timepiece is sealed in a tamper-proof security bag and stored in a temperature-controlled vault under continuous monitoring until the end of the contract period.

Flo told Arabian Business that once a client exercises the buy-back option, they receive the exact same watch back in the exact same condition. The company also emphasized speed: clients receive funds in as little as 90 minutes once the watch is authenticated. For watch owners who are reluctant to permanently sell valuable or sentimental pieces, that promise is the whole product. It is also why the model reads differently from typical lending products, where the bottleneck is often the borrower, not the collateral.

On that borrower side, Flo says The Heritage Club does not conduct credit checks or require personal guarantees. Instead, it focuses on the value of the watch itself. The company says it works with brands in the secondary market including Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Vacheron Constantin. That list is not random. In a marketplace like Dubai, where luxury watch trading attracts collectors, dealers, and auction houses from across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, the most liquid brands are the ones that can support faster, clearer valuation. The point is not that watches are identical to cash, but that they can be used as a high-value, high-recognition collateral class.

This launch is landing as Dubai continues strengthening its position as a leading luxury watch hub. Flo frames the change as a decade-long shift in the UAE collector profile: buyers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and collections have grown larger and more valuable. He says today’s collectors are well informed on market dynamics, rarity, provenance, and global demand, with some collectors moving from owning a handful of watches to building curated collections across brands, eras, and complications. That evolution matters for buy-back services because informed owners are more likely to understand that liquidity is not the opposite of passion; it can be a feature.

Flo’s core thesis to Arabian Business is that “The biggest misconception is that a watch is either a passion purchase or an investable asset. It’s both.” He adds that unlike equating watches with equities or property, watches are a distinct asset class, and in his opinion more liquid and flexible than property. There is also a practical operational angle to that argument: the company is preparing to launch an AI-powered platform that can identify a watch from a photograph, analyze market pricing data, and generate an indicative valuation before directing users to a booking system.

Even so, The Heritage Club is not leading with marketing. Flo says the business is relying heavily on referrals and word-of-mouth recommendations, and that more than 30 watches had already been transacted before the company formally launched. His blunt takeaway is that trust is everything in this business: when clients entrust assets worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dirhams, credibility comes from execution, not advertising.

For executives and board members watching this kind of model, the second-order implication is simple: collateral-based liquidity is moving beyond traditional lanes. If luxury watch ownership increasingly behaves like a managed portfolio, buy-back structures can become a niche financial product with a different risk lens than standard lending. The operational details that buyers care about, like authentication, tamper-proof storage, continuous monitoring, and the “exact same watch” return promise, are not just customer service points. They are the trust infrastructure that determines whether a new liquidity channel survives the first real stress test.