The new service is being offered by Societe Generale Private Banking And SG Kleinwort Hambros.

Societe Generale Private Banking and SG Hambros have launched an art advisory service for clients based in the UK, Channel Islands and Gibraltar. 

In partnership with Laurent Issaurat, head of art banking at Societe Generale Private Banking, based in Paris, SG Kleinwort Hambros offers introductions to professional partners in the art world who can deliver an array of services to facilitate clients' art requirements.

“Whether clients seek to acquire, transfer or sell works of art, to build, protect or manage a collection, or to combine art with philanthropy, SG Kleinwort Hambros can offer access to a wide array of specialist services designed to provide some of the finest expertise available in the art world,” Issaurat said yesterday in a statement. 

The art advisory services which they now offer include art acquisition and sales, building a collection and building a sustainable legacy. In all these areas, clients can have assistance and advice through each key step.

The development of the service is an example of how private banks tap into speciality fields such as fine art advice to add and strengthen client relationships. Besides Societe Generale, other banks, such as Deutsche Bank, UBS and Citigroup, advise their HNW clients who are interested in the art world. 

This is an area that has created a cluster of specialist advisors. In the US, for example, Ronald Varney Fine Art Advisors, which has been awarded by this news service for its work in this space (as part of this news organisation's wider awards programme), works with wealthy individuals and families on their collections. In the UK, an example (see an interview here) includes Hottinger Art, part of European firm Hottinger Group. 

There’s plenty of room to play in. The global art market exceeded pre-pandemic levels in 2022, logging 3 per cent year-on-year growth in global art sales reaching an estimated $67.8 billion, according to a UBS/Art Basel report issued in April this year. The sharpest bounce-back in the art market happened in the US, with the UK in second place, overtaking China (a country that only started to come out of tough anti-pandemic measures last year).