High Flying Investments: Prices for Racing Pigeons Soar on Demand From China

To most city dwellers, pigeons are vermin to be shooed from park benches and warned off window ledges with spikes. Gourmands might contend that spatchcocked squabs can make a nice Sunday lunch. But pay more than 100,000 euros for a pigeon?

It’s becoming increasingly common, driven largely by interest in pigeon racing among China’s newly rich, Bloomberg Markets reports in its March issue. In May 2013, Chinese businessman Gao Fuxin set a new record, paying 310,000 euros ($351,000) in an online auction for a pigeon named Bolt, after Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. The previous record: 250,400 euros, paid by a Chinese shipping tycoon in 2012. “The Chinese, they care a lot about their face, and they are willing to spend a lot of money to get that face -- to show off,” says Ian Somers of Pigeon Paradise, the Belgium-based broker that sold Bolt. (Birds from Belgium and the Netherlands are prized for their countries’ racing traditions.) The company has conducted nine auctions since 2009 in which the total proceeds exceeded one million euros.