15 July 2019

Appreciating Your Assets: Art Collecting & Wealth Management

Banks do it: “It wasn’t done for money or as an investment, but to play an active role in the community.”
“It’s a very important platform that plays a very important role for the wealth-management business,” Fabrizio Campelli, Deutsche Bank's global head of wealth management, said in a phone interview. “There’s a genuine interest that’s leading many of our clients to not just be passionate about art and treat it as object of admiration, but also as repository of invested value.’’ 
Reference: Bloomberg News 12 July 2019
Art helps Deutsche Bank deepen ties with customers
“At the most basic level, wealth management is a relationship business,” Campelli said.
“It’s offered by many institutions, and very often these clients choose the bank they are most comfortable with around relationships. When you share passions, genuine passion with your clients, it can build a much more solid relationship.” 
. . . His unit, which has 213 billion euros ($240 billion) of client assets under management and 3,000 employees worldwide, avoided the broad job cuts at the investment bank.
Wealth management is planning to add 300 jobs through 2021, focusing on relationship and investment managers who generate revenue, Campelli said.
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"A trio of large abstract paintings by artist Gerhard Richter, once a signature of Deutsche Bank AG’s cavernous lobby on Wall Street and a crown jewel of the company’s vast collection, has vanished from public view.
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It’s not clear whether Deutsche Bank plans to sell any of its more prominent artworks to raise cash, as other struggling financial firms have done in years past.
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The disappearance of the tryptich, with its bold interplay of yellow, red and green, is just one of many recent changes at the troubled German lender, which has undertaken a sweeping overhaul that will eliminate about 18,000 jobs worldwide. . . Art dealers and auction executives peg their current market value at $12 million to more than $30 million.