It is now normal to consider art a bankable asset—for the very wealthy at least—but the art market is too volatile and risky for most investors
7 January 2022
Photo: Maxim Hopman
We live in very different times, and one sign of the changed
landscape is a general acceptance of art as a financial asset. The latest
research from Deloitte and ArtTactic finds that 85% of wealth managers believe
art and collectibles should be part of their client offering. In 2014, the
equivalent survey found that just 53% were on board.
One question is, what exactly does it mean to be “part of a
wealth management offering”? Essentially, this means that art should be treated
in the same way as other assets. It can be protected—through estate planning,
insurance and hedging strategies, for example, and enhanced, such as through
regular valuations and keeping abreast of the available tax breaks that can
benefit public institutions too. Increasingly, the belief is that art could be
better monetised—such as through asset-backed loans, a booming area.
The reason for art’s growing status as an asset is simply
because of the price levels at which it can now trade, making it a more
meaningful part of a high net-worth individual’s portfolio. And there’s plenty
of room to grow: Deloitte and ArtTactic estimated that wealth associated with
art and collectibles amounted to $1.5bn of $191.6tn of their fortunes in 2020.
There has therefore been a surge in businesses that offer
data, valuation and research, plus trading tools that build on such analytics.
The auction houses, notably Sotheby’s, are beefing up their businesses in these
areas, with obvious benefits to their auction supply chain. Clearly, these are
targeting the highest echelons of the market, though recent hires such as Noah
Horowitz from Art Basel, show a move towards lending to galleries and other art
businesses, historically wary of tapping into credit markets. Sotheby’s owner
Patrick Drahi has also borrowed heavily against its New Bond Street building in
London, according to the Telegraph.
Meanwhile, Sotheby’s alumni Amy Cappellazzo, Yuki Terase and
Adam Chinn have founded a new advisory business that promises its clients
“creative financial services akin to a merchant bank”. Tokenised art, NFTs and
other blockchain-backed schemes are feeding the frenzy. The relative
transparency and rapid turnover of such sales adds to the data available,
reducing asymmetries, improving liquidity and—so the theory goes—increasing the
value of the art as new capital floods in.
To my mind, that’s still quite a leap of faith. At the
blue-chip end of the market, there is a limited supply of good work, and the
supply-to-demand ratio seems already to be stretched to its limit. In the more
mass market promised by NFTs, collectibles and their ilk, logic would dictate
that prices come down to more realistic levels. The volatility for such works,
which are highly correlated to cryptocurrencies and therefore stock markets
too, is still too risky—insurance companies are in “wait and see” mode. So
their status as bankable assets remains unconvincing.
Such concerns also surround the highly speculative market for
fresh, contemporary artists. There will be some lucky winners, but in my view
this is still an insider’s market. There are still too many people in whose
interest it is to keep information just to themselves and a select few. Art
might be a better asset than people thought, but it is still a questionable
investment.
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