Wealth-X, a provider of detailed intelligence on ultra high net worth (UHNW) individuals globally, has released a list of the top 10 billionaire art collectors.
Wealth-X CEO, Mykolas Rambus, said: "The world’s biggest billionaire art buyers have art collections worth a combined $9.18 billion, constituting approximately 18% of their net worth. Of the world’s 2,170 billionaires, the average holding of art is worth US$31m or 0.5% of their net worth."
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The billionaire with the heaviest weighting of art in his portfolio is British-Iranian property tycoon Nasser Khalili, the owner of the largest private collection of art in the world. Also known as the ‘secret sultan’, Khalili has almost all of his $1billion fortune invested in his art collection. He has liquid assets of cash and investments of around $70million, which equates to only 7% of his fortune.
Of the top ten biggest art collector billionaires, Francois Pinault, the owner of Christie’s auction house, is the wealthiest. With a fortune of $9.9bn, $1bn of that is tied up in art. He has amassed a personal collection of at least 2,000 pieces including those by Picasso, Mondrian and Jeff Koons. His collection is estimated at just over 10% of his assets.
The most expensive art collection belongs to David Lawrence Geffen, who owns an estimated $1.1billion worth of art. TheDreamWorks Animation founder has a fifth of his $5.5billion fortune invested in art. 70- year-old Geffen is a keen collector of American artists. He reportedly sold four pieces of his contemporary art collection for an estimated $421million in 2006, including a drip painting "number 5, 1948"" by Jackson Pollock for $140million, "woman III" by Willem De Kooning for $137.5million, "False Start, 1959"" by Jasper Johns for $80million, and "police gazette" for $63.5million.
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By GlobalData
