Latest news with #Sothebys
South China Morning Post
12 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Don't know how much your art is really worth? You're not alone
Depending on your perspective, the verdict delivered by art services and technology company Winston Artory Group was either very good or very bad. A print that had recently been appraised for US$1 million was, the company determined earlier this month, now worth just US$300,000 – a 70 per cent decline in possible value. These were happy tidings for the insurance company that requested the appraisal, and potentially devastating for the print's owner. 'The insurance company loved it,' says Winston Artory's co-executive chairman Elizabeth von Habsburg. 'The client, maybe not so much.' Art is not easy to value. Unlike soya beans or gold, whose prices might shift but whose inherent qualities are immutable (one soya bean is functionally the same as any other soya bean), every artwork is different, and therefore must be considered on its own merits. Making valuation even harder is the fact that a huge chunk of the art market's transactions are conducted privately, meaning that variations in price are often impossible to discern unless the world is explicitly told a sale has taken place. (Even then, the exact price is often suspect.) Mark Rothko's Untitled (Yellow and Blue) sold for HK$252.5 million (US$32.4 million) at Sotheby's Hong Kong in November 2024, making it the third most valuable work by a Western artist to be sold in Asia. Photo: courtesy of Sotheby's During a boom market, when auction results set records and art fair reports include hundreds of sales, information about price fluctuations is relatively accessible. But in recent years, as the market has deflated, publicly reported sales have thinned out and value – good or bad – has become increasingly difficult to determine. To find out more about the valuation process and the state of the art market today, we sat down with Habsburg and and her co-executive chairman, Nanne Dekking, founder of Artory, the art market data and technology company that recently merged with art appraiser and adviser Winston Art Group. We were joined by Winston Artory president Peter Loukas at the firm's Midtown headquarters in New York. Everyone says the market's down. Based on all your internal data, how bad is it really? Elizabeth von Habsburg: The market's tough, there's no question about it. You see it with the dealers that are going out of business or deciding not to continue. I'm seeing things that would've sold three years ago just not selling – even with a more reasonable reserve at auction. It's hard.
CNA
a day ago
- Business
- CNA
Fine wine prices have fallen sharply: Here's what collectors are buying now
Merchants of fine wine have had a difficult couple of years. Prices have performed miserably. An index of the 100 most sought after bottles, produced by the exchange Liv-ex, has dropped nearly 21 per cent in sterling terms in the two years to June. To cap it off, a weak 2024 vintage in Bordeaux and Burgundy has dissuaded clients from taking up any new releases of wine from those regions. It's enough to make anyone think about drowning their sorrows. But Miles Davis, a consultant at London-based merchant Vinum Fine Wines, has noted some unusual behaviour recently: His customers are buying again. 'In the first half of June, we were fortunate enough to [have] some chunky orders,' he says. Falling prices have helped shift what kinds of wines buyers are looking for. Traditionally, seasoned collectors would invest in younger bottles and hold on to them for 10 or more years to let the flavour — and hopefully the price tag — improve. With little indication that the market value when they come to sell will justify the holding costs, buyers these days, especially younger ones, are doing things differently. 'The wealthy we see buying fine wines today are buying them to drink [now],' says Nick Pegna, global head of wine & spirits at Sotheby's. 'They are interested in wine and the experience. They are buying mature wines [that are] available now.' So what wines are selling right now? And after some hefty price falls, are there some bargains to be had? NOT SO LONG AGO, THE MARKET LOOKED ROSIER Up until 2020, a series of ever-warmer growing seasons and some improvements in winemaking, including using precision digital tools on viticulture, contributed to a halcyon period for Europe's top winemakers. Then a burst of COVID-era purchases by stuck-at-home wine connoisseurs, who bought up the best of France, Italy and the US through most of 2022, led to a final surge in prices. A hangover from the pandemic period boom then settled in. When the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent commodity prices soaring and central banks raised interest rates sharply, fine wine buying dried up. Bordeaux and Burgundy wines, the most widely traded, have suffered badly. A Liv-ex price index of Bordeaux's 500 best wines has dropped 23 per cent over the two years to June. Its Burgundy 150 benchmark has lost 27 per cent. The depth of this bear market has surprised even long-term veterans of the London fine wine market, such as Stephen Browett, chair of Farr Vintners, who has worked in the business for 45 years. 'This is looking like the weakest wine market we've had in a very long time. In the banking crisis of 2008, the market was very weak but then the duty came off in Hong Kong [causing] the Asian market to boom afterwards. Our business [for French wines] in Hong Kong then just exploded.' 'Buyers are in the driving seat at the moment,' adds Browett. 'But no one needs to buy wine.' Add to this the cost of safely storing these wines, which in the UK can cost from £1 (US$1.35; S$1.72) to £1.50 per bottle annually before any taxes and duties. Those with large collections in storage may have thousands of pounds of added costs annually, painful if some of that collection is falling in price as well. 'What's worrying people about this fine wine market problem is that it's broad,' says Justin Gibbs co-founder at Liv-ex, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. In past slumps when demand for Bordeaux slowed, buyers opened their wallets to buy wines from Burgundy and Tuscany as well as vintage Champagne. 'But now it's not just Bordeaux [falling in price], it's happening in Italy and California.' Despite the gloom, both Gibbs and his founding partner James Miles see value worth chasing, particularly in Bordeaux. 'Over the next 12 to 18 months this is a great time to be picking up bargains [there],' believes Miles. 'Your downside is limited.' With the wine industry under pressure, adds Miles, the potential for bankruptcies and liquidations will grow. That could mean discounted offers of top bottles from Bordeaux, Burgundy and elsewhere. 'There will be chances across the board to buy wine 30-50 per cent from peak prices of October 2022.' AN EARLY VICTIM OF THE DOWNTURN WAS BORDEAUX There, winemakers have long had a practice of offering their newest vintages for sale well before bottling, known as en primeur. But previous discounts offered by the chateaux to their customers, partly to attract working capital, not only disappeared but turned into a premium to older vintages. That dismayed the market. A reticence to pay a premium for wines, not yet bottled and which might need ageing (and storage) for a decade or more, has put off collectors. 'For sophisticated drinkers who don't need [or want] to deal with ageing their wines, they may prefer to buy drinking wines from much earlier years,' says Chloe Ashton, managing director at 1275 Collections, a fine wine curator. 'There are small parcels of these older, greater wines sitting with chateaux or negociants [wholesalers who buy from the chateaux],' she says. Some of her clients have found supply of rare vintages, such as Mouton Rothschild 1982. Ashton also points to those vintages which received less than stellar reviews at the time, but have since evolved into lovely wines. She suggests looking at the 1983 Bordeaux vintage for clarets or bottles from 1995 and 2001. 'The point is there is not a rule on vintages,' she adds. 'In the last 10-15 years, the baseline [quality] . . . is so much better than it was.' Collectors might rightly ask where the future buyers will come from. US and Asian connoisseurs are less active then they were two decades ago. However some are taking small sips. Where prices have fallen, 'customers are buying better but less,' according to Shaun Bishop at JJ Buckley Fine Wines near San Francisco. 'That has mostly happened for Bordeaux, Burgundy less so.' His clients were less bothered by the swelling cost of the chateaux releases during en primeur. Bishop says that what customers do not like is the uncertainty about the final delivery price of foreign wines, due to President Donald Trump's vacillating policies on tariff s. Instead, they prefer to buy what Bishop already has in stock, which is dwindling. 'The consumer right now wants something that is in a bottle and ready to go.' Hong Kong was once the epicentre of the Asian buying boom in the mid-noughties. Paulo Pong at Altaya Wines thinks that while his customers still love Bordeaux, there's plenty of stock available that is ready to drink. So for them 'there's no point in buying young Bordeaux and ageing'. Altaya has had more interest in Burgundy after prices have fallen. Given the small acreage and low volumes produced — in bottles not cases — a little selling can quickly move prices of the most expensive wines. 'Increasingly, there's a trend [in Hong Kong] of people drinking more white wine,' he says. 'With Burgundy this is a challenge for us, as we can't get enough of some top whites. And [our clients] are drinking these much younger, focusing on Premier Crus and Grand Crus from communes such as Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet.' Top producers include Coche-Dury and Colin-Morey. By Alan Livsey © 2025 The Financial Times.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi Are Selling Their U.K. Home for $30 Million, Less Than A Year After Leaving The U.S.
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. In 2024, former talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and wife Portia de Rossi purchased what was supposed to be a vacation home in England. However, plans quickly changed. "We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis,'" DeGeneres told The Wall Street Journal, referring to the re-election of President Donald Trump. "And we're like, 'We're staying here'." That led the couple to sell their final property in the United States and take their house-flipping hobby across the pond. Don't Miss: 7,000+ investors have joined Timeplast's mission to eliminate microplastics— $100k+ in investable assets? – no cost, no obligation. Known as Kitesbridge Farm, the property is located in The Cotswolds, a picturesque region with rolling hills and charming villages. The couple bought it for nearly $20 million and has now put it on the market for nearly $30 million. According to the Sotheby's International Realty listing held by Andrew Barnes and Marcus O'Brien, the home has been "reimagined over the past year," indicating that DeGeneres and de Rossi have continued their house-flipping fun. "The estate blends period character with sleek, modern design across 43 acres of rolling Cotswold countryside," it says. The main residence wraps around a courtyard and has various spaces for entertaining aside from the typical living room and kitchen. There's a total of six bedrooms, including a principal suite on the first floor that features two dressing rooms, a marble-clad ensuite bathroom and French doors that lead to a private garden. Upstairs, there are the other five bedrooms and a large sitting room. Trending: This AI-Powered Trading Platform Has 5,000+ Users, 27 Pending Patents, and a $43.97M Valuation — In addition to the main house, there's a guest cottage with two bedrooms, a converted granary building with a kitchenette, a party barn with a pub and a heated five-car garage, a suite with a heated indoor swimming pool with rustic beams overhead, a gym, showers and a changing room and a helicopter shed. But it's the outdoors that really won over DeGeneres and de Rossi. "When we decided to live here full time, we knew that Portia couldn't live without her horses," DeGeneres told the Journal. "We needed a home that had a horse facility and pastures for them." Kitesbridge Farm has formal lawns, a kitchen garden, sculpted paddocks and various living areas, making this home one for people who love being outside as much as they do inside. Read Next: , which provides access to a pool of short-term loans backed by residential real estate with just a $100 minimum. With Point, you can Image: Shutterstock This article Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi Are Selling Their U.K. Home for $30 Million, Less Than A Year After Leaving The U.S. originally appeared on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
South China Morning Post
4 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
How a rare whisky's box can bump its value, and the makers getting creative
Over the last 10 years, rare whisky has seen significant price increases and fluctuations, with some bottles fetching millions at auction. But what is in the bottle is not all that matters. These days, packaging plays an important role in determining the value of a rare vintage, according to Jonny Fowle, global head of spirits at Sotheby's auction house. 'Presentation in whisky is a key factor,' he says. Unlike wine, whisky can maintain its condition even when placed on a display shelf in a collector's home, so the allure of a bottle can lie in how it looks. This is one reason why there has been an explosion of creativity in the packaging of rare whiskies in recent years, Fowle says. Jonny Fowle, Sotheby's global head of spirits, holds a bottle of The Macallan 1926, the world's most expensive whisky. Photo: Sotheby's Sotheby's is currently working on a four-year project called The Luminary Series with Scotland's Dalmore distillery and design museum V&A Dundee, in which the packaging of rare whiskies is designed by renowned architects. Three editions of rare whiskies have already been released.
Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Ellen DeGeneres lists renovated Cotswolds farmhouse for £22.5m
She is arguably America's most famous Trump exile. Ellen DeGeneres, the 67-year-old chat show host who has an estimated net worth of about £360 million, resolved to settle in Britain the day after the president's re-election, moving into a vast converted barn in the Cotswolds that she had bought as a part-time bolthole months earlier. She has, however, already decided to move on. A video released by Sotheby's International Realty revealed that DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, her wife, had put their 43-acre Kitesbridge Farm estate on the market for £22.5 million — up from the £15 million they paid last June after an extensive renovation. The 18th-century house, which also includes a gym, pool, games room and 'party barn' with its own pub, has 16,600 square feet of living space and is in the village of Asthall, at the heart of the Chipping Norton set. Yet according to DeGeneres, the house didn't have the one thing de Rossi really wanted: space for her horses. 'When we decided to live here full time, we knew that Portia couldn't live without her horses,' she said in a statement issued through Sotheby's. 'We needed a home that had a horse facility and pastures for them.' The couple, it has emerged, have already moved onto a larger and more modern estate near by. DeGeneres and de Rossi's renovation was extensive. Andrew Barnes, of Sotheby's, said Kitesbridge Farm had great bones but was 'quite tired' when the couple bought it but that it was transformed by an army of 70 workers in four and a half months. Among other upgrades, they created a single-storey extension and landscaped the garden. He said the house now looks like it belongs in Malibu, and is among the few in the area to be finished to the standard of London, Los Angeles or Montecito, California, where the couple previously lived in a £24 million house. DeGeneres and de Rossi have become known as serial flippers — buying and quickly renovating properties across the US. The latest upgrade did not, however, come without tribulations. In February, local councillors expressed concern that the works could disturb Roman remains and raise the risk of flooding. Agents said that, despite a dramatic property market slowdown thanks in part to tax and non-dom rule changes, liberal Americans have continued to express an interest in the Cotswolds. Experts suggest they prefer the area to London because of the perceived crime risk in the capital, as well as the creature comforts and celebrity residents on offer. 'Overseas and particularly American buyers are increasingly tying in their holidays with property searches, drawn by the good weather, the lifestyle and the favourable dollar-pound exchange rate,' said Harry Gladwin, head of the Cotswolds market for the high-end property agency The Buying Solution. 'American accents seem to be around every corner this summer — it feels that many make the Cotswolds their first stop rather than going to London first.'
