Ben Clark, co-chief executive officer at the Gurr Johns group, with Gurr Johns Capital managing director Alessandro Fiorotto.
Gurr Johns Capital will focus on lending to collectors of art, luxury items and collectables with loans from $1m upwards across six month to three-year deals.
The new company is run by managing director Alessandro Fiorotto, who joined Gurr Johns in 2020 from The Fine Art Group. He said: “Being neither an auction house nor a main street bank allows us to provide more flexible loans while also offering specialist advice. We put together bespoke financial loans for individuals, galleries, companies, and institutions - whether their goal is to release liquidity, make new acquisitions or simply bridge a cashflow need.”
The loans will be on a 40-70% loan-to-value range against assets including fine art, sculpture, jewellery, watches, well-cellared wine, high-value furniture, vintage cars and other collectables.
Although the financing will be focused on collectors, the firm will also work with galleries and the trade.
The financing options will be offered to all clients across the Gurr Johns group which includes auction houses Dreweatts and Forum Auctions.
However, it does not overlap with the smaller-scale peer-to-peer lending product offered by lender Unbolted via Forum.
Ben Clark, co-chief executive officer at the Gurr Johns group, said: “The art lending market is now worth over $24bn, having tripled in size in eight years. With Gurr Johns Capital, we are further extending our advisory services to private, trade and institutional clients.”
