Bankrupt Lehman Brothers to Sell Art Collection

As the world financial situation has deteriorated over the past several months and weeks, the AW Blog has posted about some of the effects and also about what might happen in the near future. Recent post topics have included the tightening of bank credit for art loans, auction houses reducing dealer credit, changing payment terms, auction houses taking out lines of credits, and museum financial planning.

Now, getting to my point. In a post on October 23, (Click HERE to read) I raised the topic from a Wall Street Journal article of troubled corporations and the possibility of having to sell in-house collections of corporate art. This is especially relevant for those collection where the firm declared bankruptcy. As I mentioned in the above post, Lehman Brothers has a collection of over 3,500 pieces of art. Well, the shoe is about to drop.

Reuters is reporting that Lehman Brothers is now considering selling portions of the collection to raise $8 million.

Reuters states The company filed court papers on Monday seeking authority to pay fees to art handlers who provided warehousing and framing services prior to the bankruptcy. Lehman said it needed to pay the fees so it could access the artwork and show it to potential buyers.

About $8 million worth of art is being stored in warehouses in New York and Paris, Lehman said. Other pieces of artwork are still located in the company's offices, the court documents showed. It did not specify the value of the additional artworks.

I would like to be part of the "art handlers" on this bankruptcy. New York City fine art appraisers may become very busy over the next few months.

To read the Reuters article, click HERE. The Reuters report is very new, and rather limited in scope. I will report more as additional information becomes avialable.