A decade ago only a handful of Wall Street investors, such as Steve Cohen and Daniel Loeb, were collecting art, but now dozens of hedge-fund managers are joining the fray, applying their day-job tactics to their art buying.
The Wall Street Journal says: "Hedge-fund managers, who play a vital but disruptive role in the broader financial markets, are increasingly throwing their weight around in the art market. They are paying record sums to drive up the values for their favourite artists, dumping artists who don't pay off and offsetting their heavy wagers on untested contemporary art by buying the reliable antiquity or two. Aggressive, efficient and armed with up-to-the-minute market intelligence supplied by well-paid art advisors, these collectors are shaking up the way business gets done in the genteel art world." Read more...
