If you’re in possession of $100 million, you should be able to spend it, right?
If that $100 million is hanging on your wall, now you can, thanks to a growing number of lenders willing to put up cash against high-quality art collections. The art-lending market has expanded to an estimated $15 billion to $19 billion of loans outstanding in the U.S. alone, according to the Deloitte Luxembourg & ArtTactic Art & Finance Report 2016.
Taking a loan out against part of its value turns the passive asset into money that can be actively invested. As the global art market has expanded, so has the financial sector that lends against it, evolving from murky overdrafts to cover a spur-of-the-moment auction purchase to multi-million-dollar leveraging of museum-worthy collections. read more