Art gains popularity as passion investment

Art is the most popular form of alternative investments by the Chinese super rich, followed by jewelry, jade, fine wine and watches, according to the annual China Passion Investments White Paper, co-released by Industrial Bank Co Ltd and Hurun Report on Monday.

The report - the second from the Shanghai-based magazine Hurun, which produced various studies on the habits of the country's richest people - was based on the results of a survey of 1,219 dollar millionaires from around the country.

Away from the more traditional areas of investment, such as property and stocks, around 64 percent said they had invested in art works.

The rate is as high as 81 percent among people with personal net assets of 50 million yuan ($8.08 million), and about 78 percent of respondents expressed willingness to invest in arts in the future.

Within art, classical Chinese paintings were the most popular, taking up about 49 percent of all investment.

Porcelain came second, with 36 percent of respondents showing a preference for that as a target of investment, followed by oil paintings, at 14 percent.

Transactions of art works began to soar in China in 2010, with the volume of art investment in the country overtaking that of the United States for the first time, accounting for a third of the world's total.

China remained the world's largest art market in 2011, worth 96.8 billion yuan, 3.7 times that volume in 2008 and taking up about 40 percent of the world's volume, according to the Beijing-based Art Market Monitor of Artron.

"I have noticed two major trends in art collection," said Wang Yannan, the director and president of China Guardian Auctions Co Ltd.

"One is that collectors are becoming younger. The other is that people are starting to talk more about art funds.

"People no longer solely depend on themselves to invest in arts. They invite friends or resort to other financing or leverages to invest in it."

The White Paper found that although only 15 percent of rich people had invested in art funds, as much as 60 percent of them were satisfied with the investment result. About 17 percent of the respondents said they will invest in art funds.

On average, Chinese millionaires started investing in passion investments, or alternative forms of investment, in 2008.

"At a time when the stock market or the property market does not perform as well as before, it is probably the best time for people to turn to alternative investments," said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report.

"Having a better understanding of the consumption of these rich people, who have more money to invest, will help boost domestic consumption, which is line with the central government's call," he added.