CEO and major investor Philip Hoffman claims to have earmarked $50 million with pledges from additional investors for another $50 million. The FT states Hoffman has 16 billionaire families willing to invest between $10 and $15 million each as well as his own contributions. He has interest in purchasing collections from Spain and England.
Carpenter states His investor group is seeking to buy two art collections worth up to $65 million and owned by a Spanish bank and a manufacturer, the Financial Times reported today. Hoffman declined to identify the owners. “It’s a buyer’s market in some areas,” Hoffman said. “In Old Masters, it’s not.”
The Financial Times reports A number of other corporate art collections are expected to come onto the market during the course of 2009. The syndicate is raising additional money in expectation of bidding for them.
The biggest collections in the corporate art world tend to be in the banking sector, with law firms also big spenders. Many companies have bought art to support young artists as part of their corporate social responsibility programmes, alongside sponsoring exhibitions and fairs.
The biggest corporate art collection is considered to be that owned by Deutsche Bank, which has a large steel sculpture by Anish Kapoor, and a Damien Hirst dot painting, among its 56,000 items. Deutsche Bank has said, however, that it remains committed to owning its art collection.
Another big collection is owned by UBS. It has work by Roy Lichtenstein and Willem de Kooning, but has also said it is keeping its collection.
Mr Hoffman, whose Fine Art Fund numbers 16 billionaire families as investors, said each investor in his institutional art syndicate - currently amounting to five or six - would invest between $10m and $15m each, and his fund would put in the balance. Mr Hoffman said he would sell the art on over a period of five years.
To read the Bloomberg article, click HERE, or click HERE for the Financial Times article (more depth than the Bloomberg piece).
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