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As the
interest rate offered by banks continue to decline for
deposits, other investment alternatives, outside of the
stock market, are looming as pretty viable avenues for
wealth creation or capital appreciation.
Artworks, for instance, have found new interest from
savvy investors, especially with the new attention that
auction houses have focused on paintings, sculptures and
other artworks by Filipino masters. The key, however, is
a nose for those works that could prove to be excellent
investments.
Artworks
as an investment, according to an e-mail we received
from Provenance Fine Art Brokers Inc., with office
address at The World Trade Center in Makati, sometimes
beat the returns provided by the stock market. As an
asset class, artworks command excellent investment
prospects, Provenance officials Andre Urbina and Earl
Baje said. This is especially true for the works of the
upcoming artists whose paintings or sculptures could
command better prices in the future.
Consistent with the investment saw “not to put your eggs
in one basket,” the investors in the stock market could
consider artworks as alternative investments. We
understand that Provenance has a listing of works by
Filipino painting greats Juan Luna and Fernando Amorsolo
and up-and-coming artists. In the art world, the key is
knowing who has the collection for particular items that
investors need. This, we learned from the Urbina-Baje
tandem, is what matters most.
The
excellent investment prospects that Filipino artworks
enjoy can be gleaned from the recent auction results by
known houses such as Sotheby’s, Christie’s and
Larasati’s. A 1972 Bencab acrylic on paper, which was
estimated to fetch between $19,000 and $26,000, was sold
for more than double at $54,000, while that of Anita
Magsaysay-Ho’s 19-inch by 15-inch oil on canvas, went
for $84,000 as against its estimated price of from
$28,000 to $41,000. The continued demand for Philippine
masterpieces from the region is seen to perk up,
according to Mr. Urbina.
At
Sotheby’s, in its recent auction of Felix Resurrecion
Hidalgo’s La Parisienne, a 21-inch by 36-inch
masterpiece, sold for double its pegged price to
$217,000. The auction results have proven that Filipino
masterpieces are gaining notice from collectors from the
region.
Artworks, we understand, are recession-proof and that
they are bound to match the returns on the S&P index or
the local Phisix. This is especially true for collectors
in the region who want depth in their collections.
Artworks
as an investment alternative are exemplified by the
so-called Ganz Collection. We understand that when
Christie’s auctioned the sale of 20th century artworks
from the estate of Victor and Sally Ganz, the collection
netted $207 million, considered a record sum for a
single-owner sale of art at auction. In an article by
William M. Landes of the University of Chicago Law
School, the Ganz Collection when sold was deemed
equivalent to “winning the art lottery.”
“Overall, the Ganzes beat—often by a wide margin—the
returns from diversified portfolios of common stocks.
The empirical evidence shows that the Ganzes were not
only lucky but skillful investors as well,” according to
Mr. Landes, who compared the purchases made by the
Ganzes and the eventual prices they fetched at auction,
against identical works. “They earned consistently high
returns, regularly beating the stock market on works by
different artists acquired at different time periods,”
Mr. Landes found. This gives credence to the
preeminence, at times, of artworks as investment
vehicles.
Movements: Pfizer corporate communications head Ms.
Karen Villanueva is moving over to another
pharmaceutical giant, Merck, Sharp and Dhome (MSD) two
days from now (February 16) as external affairs
director. Ms. Villanueva is expected to bring to MSD the
lessons learned from a bruising communication battle
that Pfizer had to contend with in the government
campaign to bring in cheap drugs.
E-mail:hugagni@yahoo.com |
