In the coming weeks Wealth Enterprises Corporation will provide select investrs and art lovers with an opportunity to invest in the Corporation's Art and Destination Club Offering. Please email mike@verdultgallery.com for further information.
According to the Antique Digest, just two years ago, art investment hedge funds seemed to be an idea whose time had come. “The idea didn’t sour,” one disappointed investor said, “but the person who looted it made it not work.” Between a dozen and 20 art investment funds around the world have either come into existence within the past two years or were in the process of being launched, according to a number of high-end investment analysts. Many of these hedge fund managers cited the work of New York University economists Michael Moses and Jianping Mei, who devised the Mei/Moses Fine Art Index, which tracks art assets (based on auction records) relative to the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index listings. These economists found that art often outperformed stocks. Moses himself consulted with Taub and with Daniella Luxembourg of the Geneva, Switzerland-based ArtVest; Ariel Salama, managing director of private banking services for the Dutch ABN AMRO; and Philip Hoffman, director of the London, England-based Fine Art Fund. ArtVest has bought and sold a limited number of artworks for a small group of investors, while ABN AMRO gave up on its art hedge fund before even starting one. Only the Fine Art Fund remains as a working art investment program.
“Art as an asset class has two wonderful attributes,” said Moses, who has recently retired from New York University and currently operates with Mei an advisory service for people looking to invest in art, Beautiful Asset Advisors. “There is the beauty of the object itself, and there is the joy of the acquisition process. You get to learn about the art and ask questions; you meet other investors and collectors; you can talk with an artist; and there is the excitement of the chase. I think what we may be seeing is not less interest in diversifying one’s portfolio to include art but, rather, that individuals who decide to invest in art want to do it on their own. They don’t need a manager for their art investments, and that causes an art fund to have a lot of headwinds to sail into.”
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