The St. Louis Business Journal gives extraordinary detail on the Xiling Fund which invests in Chinese Works of Art and has launched a second vehicle. Those with a long memory for art funds will know that Chinese Porcelain was the basis of one of the first and most successful art investing vehicles in the UK a generation ago:
Four years ago, Bill Carey launched a $17 million private investment fund, Xiling Group LLC, to acquire rare Chinese porcelain. That fund is fully invested and owns some 20 pieces, all of them several hundred years old, and each costing more than $500,000. Now, Carey and his advisers are out shopping again for imperial Chinese art, this time with a new Xiling fund that raised $25 million.
“There’s lots of overlap” by investors who placed money in both funds, said Carey, president and chief investment officer of Cortland Associates, a Clayton investment firm with $450 million in assets under management. Carey, along with Thomas Podlesny, Cortland’s chief operating officer, are among the investors returning to Xiling. Carey and his family have invested a combined $625,000 in Xiling Fund II. Other returning investors include Ken Kranzberg, chairman of packaging company TricorBraun, one of St. Louis’ largest private companies; Bruce Wilcox, co-chairman of New York-based hedge fund Cumberland Associates; and John Kenny, executive vice president of corporate development for Boston-based data storage company Iron Mountain. […] The second Xiling fund, like the first, has a goal of maximizing return to investors, Carey said. It is purchasing pieces in a similar price range — from $400,000 to several million dollars each. Xiling II already has acquired a half-dozen works, including an amphora vase produced during China’s Yongzheng reign, 1723-1735.
