Skate's Art Investment Review

Welcome to Skate’s Annual Art Investment Report — published by Skate’s Art Market Research since 2006, this report covers global art market trends and provides forecasts for the coming year. In the first part of the report, we have looked at art market as consumer good industry and ranked online art trading platforms operating around the world – Please click here to read Skate’s Annual Report Part 1.
In this second part we focus on the high end of global art market and global art industry companies performance in 2011:

• Skate’s Top 5000 total value reached $30.5 billion, and the ranking’s threshold price broke the $2 million level.

• Average annualized investment returns on the world’s masterpieces peaked at 4.82%, confirming the strong performance of exceptional artworks amidst global economic turmoil.
• Skate’s Art Stock Index had its worst year since 2008, losing 15% in value in 2011. This performance came despite robust auction volumes, with the index’s flagship stock Sotheby’s shedding over one-third of its value in 2011, producing a -35.5% return for its shareholders for the year as of December 23, 2011.

Please click here to read the full article with data.

New Art Industry Stock to be Listed in Germany

Polish Abbey House’s very successful IPO earlier this year (the firm’s share price is up 270% in PLN terms since May) was clearly an inspiration for many art industry entrepreneurs. Skate’s has learned that at least one such entrepreneur is about to follow with a listing shortly; Weng Fine Art AG, a well-established art dealer from Krefeld, Germany is set to be the first listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2012 when its shares will be admitted to trading on January 3, 2012. Skate’s is currently reviewing Weng Fine Art’s application to Skate’s Art Stock Index. If granted the firm would become the 14th constituent company in the index and the second after artnet to come from Germany (another German firm, Berlin-based photography dealer and fund CameraWork, was excluded from the index earlier this year due to lack of trading).

Weng Fine Art is an international art dealer focused on B2B art trading and established and managed by former financier Rüdiger Weng, who owns 87% of the firm’s shares with the balance owned by individual shareholders. The listing on January 3, 2012 will provide liquidity to those shareholders; no new equity offering is scheduled to take place at that time, although a capital increase for Weng Fine Art is likely to take place later in 2012 and will be executed in a form of a public offering on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Skate’s will publish its index decision together with a very detailed profile of Weng Fine Art AG on December 26, 2011.

Please click here to read the full article with data.