Komehyo builds a London subsidiary, completing an Asia-North America-Europe network
Komehyo Holdings, Japan's largest listed luxury-resale operator, is setting up a wholly owned London subsidiary this month, completing a three-region network across Asia, North America and Europe — and pointing itself at a European reuse market it says is more than three times the size of Japan's.
Komehyo Holdings, the Nagoya-based operator of a nationwide network of luxury-resale stores, is establishing a wholly owned subsidiary in London this September, provisionally named Komehyo UK Limited, the company said. Masayoshi Katayama will represent the new unit, which is capitalised at £2 million (about ¥430 million) and will buy and sell secondhand jewellery, watches, designer bags, accessories and clothing, according to Komehyo.
The London entity completes what Komehyo calls a three-region structure spanning Asia, North America and Europe, part of what it terms a "global reuse chain." The company cited a European market for personal luxury-brand resale it puts at €14.5 billion (about ¥2.3 trillion) — more than three times the €4.4 billion (about ¥700 billion) it estimates for Japan's equivalent market — as the rationale for the move, and noted that Europe accounts for roughly 17% of global GDP. Komehyo, founded in 1979 and led by representative director and president Takuji Ishihara, built its business on buying, authenticating and reselling used luxury goods domestically before expanding into Asia and North America.
The move flips the usual direction of travel on this beat: rather than another Western maison entering Japan, a Japanese retailer is taking its model to the markets those maisons come from, betting that a European secondhand economy it sizes at more than three times Japan's own remains under-served by comparison. Whether Komehyo's authentication-led, high-volume approach translates in a market with entrenched resale platforms and consignment chains of its own is the question the London launch doesn't yet answer.