Art Investment Products Have a Threshold of 1 Million Yuan; High Risks Lie Behind
Liu Wei
The art investment products have become abnormally popular. Influenced by the bull market in the art market, art investment has rapidly heated up recently. Recently, some banks have specially customized art trust financial products for high-end customers. The threshold for this art trust financial product is 1 million yuan, with a term of 1 year and an expected annualized return rate of 10%. It mainly invests in works of Chinese painting and calligraphy masters such as Qi Baishi, Zhang Daqian, Xu Beihong, as well as 20th-century oil painting masters and contemporary artists. The sales situation of this product is extraordinarily hot. Despite the sales scale being only 45 million yuan, the scale of reserved customer funds exceeds 70 million yuan, including many investors with single investments of more than 10 million yuan. All 45 million yuan of total shares were sold out within 3 days.
In addition to banks, trust companies have also recently launched financial products linked to art. The "Rongmei No.1 Art Collection Fund Trust Plan" issued last month by Zhongrong Trust has a term of 12 months and a trust scale of 100 million yuan. The minimum subscription amount for customers is 1 million yuan. The expected annualized return rate of this art trust product is 8%. The "Baoteng No.1 Art Investment Collection Fund Trust Plan" recently issued by Beijing Trust has an expected annualized return rate of 9%-10%.
In fact, banks and trust companies have previously issued art financial products. As early as three years ago, Minsheng Bank launched the "Extraordinary Wealth Management - Art Investment Plan No.1" product, mainly investing in modern and contemporary Chinese paintings, contemporary art pieces, and a small number of ancient paintings. Upon expiration, it achieved an annualized return as high as 12.75%. One and a half years later, Construction Bank's art investment collection fund trust plan made a grand entrance. This product was terminated ahead of schedule after one year, with an annualized return rate of 7%. Guotou Trust has already issued 9 phases of art trust products, raising over 6 billion yuan from investors.
Will the hotspot turn into a bubble?
"From the recent active trading situations at Tianjin Cultural Exchange and the planned Zhengzhou Cultural Exchange, art investment is currently a significant hotspot," said Deng Hui, a wealth management planner. Many investors are now very interested in art investment, which is not unrelated to the booming art market in recent years.
Ms. Hong, who likes trust investment, said that she mainly invested in real estate trust products before. With the continuous tightening of real estate market regulation policies, putting "all eggs in one basket" is no longer reassuring. Therefore, she hopes to allocate part of her funds to art trust products. Zhao Yang, a researcher at PuYi Wealth, stated that from the perspective of asset allocation, apart from real estate trust products and securities investment trust products, investors can also consider art trust products. Since the art market does not directly correlate with the stock market and the real estate market, this can, to a certain extent, avoid systemic risks.
However, some experts are not optimistic about art investment. The director of a university capital research center stated that the paintings traded on Tianjin Cultural Exchange represent a typical financial bubble. "The bubble in the art investment market is continuously expanding, and Tianjin Cultural Property Exchange has further fueled it." From the current status of art investment, if not strictly managed, the bursting of the art bubble is inevitable. "Trust companies should carefully consider whether to invest in an industry where the bubble has already grown quite large."
Currently, art investment has become a major hotspot. The surge in prices brought by the "listing" of art pieces at Tianjin Cultural Exchange has sparked a wave of enthusiasm for the financialization of art. Some banks and trust companies have also successively launched various art-related financial products, attracting investors' attention. These products have relatively high returns, with the lowest being 8% and the highest even reaching 10%. Although the threshold is as high as one million yuan, investors are actively purchasing them. High returns often come with high risks, so investors need to be extremely cautious when investing in these products.
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