[Dogel]

Vice-president of Gazprombank and CEO Art Finance Marina Sitnina said in an interview to RIA Novosti about the popularity of new forms of investment in the arts, who have earned on the arts in crisis, and the photo is turned into money. Interviewed by Mary Ganiyants.

- Nearly two years ago, Federal Financial Markets Service (the Federal Financial Markets Service of Russia) has legalized the creation of closed-end mutual funds (CUIT, participation in which requires a high threshold for the first installment) of artistic values. How does it work?

- In the domestic market mutual funds arts - a new kind of investment, they give investors the opportunity to combine their resources under the auspices of a professional management company. Assets of such funds may be themselves works of art, as well as financial assets (eg stocks employed in the art market companies), as well as money. Now in Russia, both home and abroad can invest in art: either invest in the purchase or invest are themselves works of art - paintings, sculptures, icons, stamps, books and manuscripts, historical documents, ancient coins, medals, film and photos and stuff. With effective management of growth in net asset value of artistic values ​​ensured by increasing the market value of various categories of assets in the fund's portfolio (primarily, of course, investors will be interested in increasing the value of art assets), and by obtaining other types of income from operations, such as from exhibitions, publications, etc.

- What is the difference between this approach and correctly picked a collection of investment, they seem the same goal - buying up promising affordable art and attempt to disengage from the emotional factor?

- These funds use financial engineering (development of new financial instruments and products) and operate as professional investors, completely free from the "emotional factor". In addition, significant amounts of funds allows them to implement the basic principles of successful investing in the art market - buy the best to diversify risks by investing in different segments and apply the "niche" and "opportunistic" strategy, ie buy and sell quickly in order to get speculative profit and to seek out undervalued assets. First of all, mutual funds artistic values ​​calculated for qualified investors. According to the Status of Federal Financial Markets Service, the minimum value of one fund unit of this kind should not be less than half a million rubles.

- How it works in Russia? Are there many established art investment funds?

- The difference between Russian art fund is that part of their assets could be acquired only artistic treasures that have passed the appropriate examination of art that are on Russian territory without the obligation to re-exportation. To date, according to media reports, Federal Financial Markets Service registered three such funds: "Russia" under the control of the Criminal Code, "the Mint Trust", "Collection of photoelectric effect" (MC "Agana", is a group of "Alor") and the Atlanta-Art "( UK "Atlanta"). The latter two have already eliminated their shares on the MICEX, which should increase their liquidity. Media wrote that the portfolio CUIT Atlanta-Art "- an album of genre of Italian drawings of Charles Bryullova with a dedication painter Countess Wittgenstein, estimated at 4.4 million dollars.

But CUIT "Collection. Photoelectric effect" - a sensation. It is the largest unit fund artistic treasures in the history of this type of investment in the world - its assets, according to the company, valued at more than 14 billion rubles (about half a billion dollars), which at times exceeds the entire amount of the assets of all art assets in the world. For comparison, the most successful in the history of the art institutional investment and pension fund companies British Rail at the time was "only" about 69.4 million dollars. Foundation "Collection. Photoelectric effect, created a period of 15 years and, according to the fund in the first years of operation will be implemented annually for at least 5%of assets, ie, the first phase of development, each year will be put up for sale photos for $ 20 - $ 40 million.

The assets of the fund, according to their data, more than 300,000 photographs and about 400 thousand negatives world's best photographers. This photo archives of Alexander Rodchenko, Henri Cartier-Bresson, unique to the photographic history of Briton Roger Fenton and Daguerreotypes Giraud de Pranzhe, personal archives of prominent figures of XX-th century, and numerous works of local and foreign masters of photography.

- Attach the order of half a billion dollars in photography, when all the Russian art market, according to expert estimates, draws a maximum of $ 2 billion, in the midst of crisis, it seems incredible. Chance was the next option - no money invested, but simply a crisis fund was able to negotiate with owners of large collections of photographs and accumulate on mutually beneficial conditions, these assets? According to the press the ultimate beneficiaries of the Criminal Code, "Agana" in the market believe Anatoly Gavrilenko (Chairman of the Board of Directors "Alor Invest") and his son Anatoly (CEO UK "Leader", the largest management companies in Russia on the amount of assets under management and the size of its own capital).

- The fact that under the legislation, when placing the units of the Fund, to pay for them can not only money but also due to the transfer of works of art in the fund. I think that discuss the fund's strategy is better directly with its representatives, I can only say that investing in a photo to me personally to be very promising. In the world there are about 50 mutual funds, working with artistic values. Some of them have successfully weathered the crisis, for example, two European fund, the assets of which were pictures - Tosca Photography Fund, which, however, now sells art assets and Art Photography Fund.

Austrian Art Photography Fund, formed in 2008, also announced that its assets had increased by one third. Since the launch of the fund return was 9.57%per annum - and this is in the midst of financial crisis!

- As far as economically reasonable bet is to photograph in the Russian conditions?

- Very wisely, in my view. On the one hand, the picture with respect to (compared with the masterpieces of old masters and Impressionist paintings) "cheap" and available pool of potential buyers is much wider, and opportunities to influence the market more. On the other - obvious growing interest in it, manifested in the appearance of numerous exhibitions and biennial triennial, a large number of specialized trades auction houses, photo fairs, etc.

In Russia, of course, the enormous popularity of pictures helps the Moscow Biennale and the Festival "Fashion and Style in Photography", the opening of Multimedia Art Museum, Spreading the submission of this form of art. In addition, Russia has many fine photographers whose work is quite internationally, and the market for the world of art photography, according to some experts, is 1,5 billion euros.

- Owners of the art collections of profitable mutual funds to participate in the arts? This allows you to avoid paying income tax on the sale of the art facility?

- Tax holidays, indeed, exist for any type of fund shareholders, not just CUIT HC. But do not forget that there are costs: management fee, re-evaluate, administer the fund and so on. As for the individual owners of works, in case they are sold they are entitled to property tax deduction, if these works were in their property for three years or more. It is only necessary to document that due to the peculiarities of business turnover on the art market - often not so simple.

- How to behave abroad art funds in a crisis?

- Some funds, especially those in the assets of which were modern art, lost part of its assets, some, announced the creation of, and not yet formed. Some market segments have suffered more, other, more conservative (the old masters, sculpture, decorative arts), almost none. Here, for example, already mentioned Art Photography Fund for the entire period since 2008 has brought its shareholders 32.55%per annum. For comparison, money market funds in the euro area according to the European Central Bank in December 2010 showed negative returns at the level of 10,2%per annum.