Actively managed closed-end fund offers shares and tokens to accredited investors seeking diversified exposure to fine art
HAMILTON, Bermuda, Sept. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Continuing their push to employ blockchain technology to reduce inefficiencies in traditional finance, Alpha Innovations and global financial service provider Apex Group today announced their collaboration supporting the launch of a tokenized fine art fund, Strada Digital Masterpieces. Its corresponding master fund (collectively, the "Fund") has also been launched on the fund platform of DigitalArray, Alpha Innovations' affiliate company. The Fund is advised by Artory/Winston, a joint venture between Winston Art Group, the leading independent art advisory and appraisal firm, and Artory, an art and technology firm led by the previous Vice Chairman of Sotheby's.
DigitalArray's turnkey fund and governance solution and Apex Group's ongoing fund administration services were selected by the Artory/Winston team to provide the institutional-quality infrastructure required for the Fund offering. The Fund will allow investors to obtain exposure to a carefully curated portfolio of physical artworks, constructed to provide both stability of investment as well as exposure to the strong upside potential of the fine art market.
"Credibility and expertise from our decades of experience are at the heart of Artory/Winston's work in the art market," says Elizabeth von Habsburg, Managing Director of Winston Art Group. Nanne Dekking, founder and CEO of Artory agrees, "Our partnership with Alpha Innovations and Apex Group has allowed us to further realize our mission by providing the quality infrastructure and market leadership needed to create this robust, first-of-its-kind art fund."
Winston Art Group will lead the sourcing and diligence on the artwork considered and purchased for the Fund. Artory's technology will be used to capture the artworks' due diligence data on the blockchain, providing investors with the confidence of investing in artworks with immutable records, verified provenance, and digital certification. Investors can purchase interests via either the traditional share structure of the master fund, or tokens representing ownership interests of the feeder fund.
"Today marks a milestone in Artory/Winston's mission to expand the art market, make it more accessible, and offer investors a smarter diversification strategy for investing in this opportune asset class," said Nanne Dekking, Founder and CEO of Artory. "We bring the art expertise, market access, technology, and credibility to the art investment process that simply was not present until now. Winston's selection of artworks and the reliability that comes with Artory's blockchain-secured digital certificate aims to instill investor confidence in our strategy not just today, but for many years to come."
"Our motivation for partnering with Winston and Artory was the impeccable pedigree and exceptional sourcing capability of their respective teams," said Lawrence Newhook, President and CEO of Alpha Innovations. "Providing our investors with access to potential secondary market liquidity in an historically illiquid asset is a game-changer," he continued.
Bruce Jackson, Chief of Digital Asset Funds and Business at Apex Group, explained: "The greatest impediment to widespread adoption of digital assets is a lack of quality tokenized products supported by institutional-quality infrastructure. Apex Group provides robust, scalable and flexible fund administration services to over $3 trillion of assets globally, and this appointment is yet further evidence of our innovative architecture enabling us to support managers who are pioneering new structures in this fast-evolving area of financial services. The launch of the Artory/Winston fund marks an important addition to the small number of quality investment products available in tokenized form, and we are pleased to support them in this effort."
The Artory/Winston art fund is a diversified portfolio of investment-grade fine artworks by blue chip, mid-career and emerging artists. The investment strategy provides the stability of the blue chip art market with the high potential for returns generated by mid-career and emerging artists.
Elizabeth von Habsburg, Founder and Managing Director of Winston Art Group added: "The top performing artists have outpaced the S&P500 for over twenty years, with art widely regarded as a stable and resilient global market. But not every artwork retains value. It takes experienced advisors to understand which artworks have the highest potential to excel. We capture that potential by combining Winston's decades of due diligence experience, trusted appraisal process and depth of access to artworks with Artory's technology, digital certification, and art market experience."
Further information about the Fund can be found on Alpha Innovations' fund marketplace at https://app.aistrategies.io.
About Apex Group
Apex Group Ltd., established in Bermuda in 2003, is a global financial services provider. With over 80 offices in 40 countries worldwide and more than 10,000 employees upon the close of announced acquisitions, Apex Group delivers an expansive range of services to asset managers, financial institutions, private clients and family offices. The Group has continually improved and evolved its capabilities to offer a single-source solution through establishing the broadest range of services in the industry; including fund services, digital onboarding and bank accounts, depositary, custody, super ManCo services, corporate services including HR and Payroll and a pioneering ESG Ratings and Advisory solution. Apex Group's purpose is to be more than just a financial services provider and is committed to driving positive change to address three core areas; the Environment and Climate Change, Women's Empowerment and Economic Independence, Education and Social Mobility.
About Alpha Innovations International
Alpha Innovations International ISAC Ltd. ("AI") is a global asset management firm engineered to provide institutional and ultra high net worth investors access to diverse sources of alpha from traditional and digital asset markets. The core team consists of talent from blue chip firms across the investment industry, including Goldman Sachs and Point72 Asset Management. AI and subsidiaries including DigitalArray ISAC Ltd. and AI Global Strategies ISA are headquartered in Bermuda. AI and DigitalArray ISAC Ltd. do not conduct 'digital asset business activities' as such term is defined under Bermuda's Digital Asset Business Act 2018 ("DABA") that would require them to be licensed under DABA and have therefore not applied for and are not licensed under DABA. For more information, visit https://AIStrategies.io and https://DigitalArray.io.
About Artory/Winston
Artory/Winston creates unique investment opportunities by sourcing the finest artworks with the greatest potential to grow in value and generate real returns. Combining Artory's industry-leading art registry technology with Winston Art Group's deep market expertise and broad access to the primary market, secondary market, and private sources around the world enables its experts to identify the right opportunities, determine valuation and verify provenance. Artory/Winston then provides a diversified set of investment vehicles that come with digital certification on the blockchain with the flexibility and liquidity of fractionalized ownership. For more information, please visit http://Artory-Winston.com, https://www.Artory.com, and http://WinstonArtGroup.com.
Media Contact
AI Global Strategies Media, AI Global Strategies ISA, +011.646.854.5900, [email protected]
SOURCE AI Global Strategies ISA
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