Press clips

Some interesting articles:
- London banks sell Old Masters, buy Contemporary
- Banksy chimps get sliced up
- Art funds expand in emerging markets...
- ...but Belgians don't really care

Fun with funds

Do you have some spare money you'd like to invest in art? Next to the Fine Art Fund, some new possibilities are popping up. The Vienna-based hedge fund company Sharpe Investments has an investment fund called Sharpe Art and an Italian fund manager is launching a new 150 million art fund, together with Simon De Pury.

"The art market did not suffer repercussions when the Internet bubble burst and it is doing extremely well today, even after the credit crunch," said Robert Tomei, chief executive of the Italian fund manager Advanced Capital, who is starting his third art fund.

The Tomei Advanced Capital Art Fund, run with the art dealer Simon de Pury of Phillips de Pury, will focus on contemporary art, photography and design and hopes to replicate the 20 percent annual returns he achieved with past funds.

The fund factor

This summer, Art + Auction published its annual investment guide, edition 2007. Next to must-read articles on fakes, art indexes and auction room practices, it also featured a short interview with Chris Carlson, one of the founders of the Art Trading Fund. The fund "buys and sells pieces directly through its own network of artists, dealers and auction houses, (...) providing downside protection by taking short positions in securities with a high correlation to the art market (think Sotheby's and luxury goods)". Yes, a hedge fund. Carlson: "To say the art market can be made look like another financial market is wrong. To say that we can look at art over time and understand the way in which returns have been generated (...) is absolutely accurate." The minimum intial investment is about $200,000.