The Fine Art Group’s Philip Hoffman appeared in the Financial Times over the holiday with this comment on the growing accumulation of Western art in Asian hands:

Asia is home to up to 40 families that hold a collective $8bn-$12bn in western artwork, with the majority of those investments being made over the past 10 years, Mr Hoffman said.

That works out to about $200m in art owned by each family. Those are meaningful concentrations of value. Though we should be careful about these kind of loose valuations which are most likely based upon purchase prices, not sales or, even, appraisals, and raise some concern of the buyers creating their own market.

Hoffman talking his own book in the financial press isn’t particularly new or newsworthy. The Fine Art Group, which only two and a half years ago was still styling itself as the Fine Art Fund and the largest player in the art fund business, used the opportunity of having the FT’s attention to pitch itself as a specialist in “using art as collateral for lending, a business it only announced it was entering late in 2016.

Now, Hoffman says, the fund is opening offices in Shanghai in Hong Kong soon to meet demand:

“We see the lending capabilities easily at $1bn over the next 10 years and have the backing from investors to do this,” Mr Hoffman said.

London-based art fund targets $1bn lending in Asia (Financial Times)