Art Loans
Art loans may be made for many reasons, some of which may include advances against art not yet produced (usually made to artists of some repute), advances against items to be auctioned or otherwise sold (known as a bridge loan to sale, a type of bridge loan), to finance new purchases (known as acquisition financing and similar to a mortgage), and loans to assist dealers amass inventory (known as a working capital line of credit).
In the difficult economic climate of 2009, some banks previously offering such services discontinued them. UBS, the world’s biggest wealth manager and sponsor of Art Basel, announced in April, 2009 that it would close its 11-year-old art advisory division. In contrast, some start-up art financiers have stepped into the vacuum created by the departing banks, such as former corporate raider Asher Edelman, with unique and legally-untested methods of auction guarantees.
In September 2008 the Museum of American Finance held a panel discussion on financing to support art acquisitions.
In April 2012, Artvest Partners estimated the art lending market at roughly US $7 billion.
Read more about this topic: Art Finance
Famous quotes containing the words art and/or loans:
“There is no mystery in a looking glass until someone looks into it. Then, though it remains the same glass, it presents a different face to each man who holds it in front of him. The same is true of a work of art. It has no proper existence as art until someone is reflected in it—and no two will ever be reflected in the same way. However much we all see in common in such a work, at the center we behold a fragment of our own soul, and the greater the art the greater the fragment.”
—Harold C. Goddard (1878–1950)
“The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations.... But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)