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inflection point? · oil major tears up the industry’s financial playbook

In August 2014 Simon Evans of Carbon Brief, reporting on a white paper, “Fossil fuel divestment: a $5 trillion challenge,” published days earlier by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, noted that “‘fossil fuels are investor favourites for a reason’….fossil fuel investments have a history of strong performance.

“BNEF looked at seven alternative trillion-dollar sectors and found that only shares in real estate firms have paid higher dividends in recent years than fossil fuel firms.”

(Simon Evans, “Why fossil fuel divestment won’t be easy,” Carbon Brief, 27 August 2014)

Fast forward to today. Due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, global energy demand in the first quarter of 2020 was 3.8% lower than in the same quarter of 2019. The IEA expects global energy demand for 2020 to decline by 6% year-on-year, a decline not seen for decades.

Annual rate of change in primary energy demand, %, since 1900, with key events impacting demand highlighted. Source: Josh Gabbatiss, “IEA: Coronavirus impact on CO2 emissions six times larger than 2008 financial crisis,” Carbon Brief, 30 April 2020; IEA Global Energy Review

The fossil fuel sector, consistently a source of large dividends over the years, is suddenly under market stress and scrutiny from investors.

While “most analysts expected the world’s largest Western super majors … to defend their dividend at almost any cost given how important the payouts are to North American investors” (Kevin Crowley, Exxon Freezes Dividend for First Time in 13 years Amid Crash, Bloomberg, 29 April 2020), Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, shocked the investing world.

Shell both reduced its dividend, the first time it has done so since World War II, for Q1 2020 and, observing that it would be neither “wise” nor “prudent” nor “responsible” to do so, announced it will not follow industry practice of borrowing against its balance sheet to finance the dividend payment.

“The Board of Royal Dutch Shell plc (“RDS” or the “Company”) today announced an interim dividend in respect of the first quarter of 2020 of US$ 0.16 per A ordinary share (“A Share”) and B ordinary share (“B Share”), reduced from the US$ 0.47 dividend for the same quarter last year.“

“The pace and scale of the societal impact of COVID 19 and the resulting deterioration in the macroeconomic and commodity price outlook is unprecedented. The duration of these impacts remains unclear with the expectation that the weaker conditions will likely extend beyond 2020.

“In response, Shell has taken decisive actions to reduce our spending and position our businesses to compete in the current lower commodity price environment and uncertain demand outlook.

“The Board of Royal Dutch Shell has taken the decision to reset its dividend to provide financial resilience and further flexibility to manage the uncertainty. Shell is taking the steps necessary to ensure that we are well-positioned for the eventual economic recovery.“

(“Royal Dutch Shell plc first quarter 2020 interim dividend,” 30 April 2020)

Not only did the dividend reduction, coupled with CEO Ben van Beurden’s further announcement that Shell would not take on debt to fund its dividend payment, shock investors, it also “tore up the industry’s playbook.”

“When the boss of Royal Dutch Shell Plc slashed his dividend on Thursday, he didn’t just shock investors,” Laura Hurst of Bloomberg commented, “he tore up the industry’s financial playbook.

“For decades Big Oil has used the strength of a large balance sheet to borrow money when the going gets tough and keeps investors sweet until the next upward cycle.

“As the coronavirus pandemic potentially causes lasting damage to energy demand, Europe’s largest oil company asked whether this strategy is sustainable.

“’I would say no,’ said Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden. ‘It’s also not wise and prudent, nor even responsible, to pay out a dividend if you know for sure you have to borrow for it.‘”

(Laura Hurst, “Shell’s Dividend Cut Shows This Time is Different for Big Oil,” Bloomberg, 30 April 2020)

Norwegian multinational energy company Equinor (OSE:EQNR,NYSE:EQNR; formerly Statoil) announced on 23 April a cash dividend of US$ 0.09 per share for the first quarter 2020, a reduction of 67% compared to the dividend proposed for the fourth quarter 2019.  

On 28 April, BP announced an interim dividend of 10.50 cents per ordinary share for the first quarter of 2020.

Gaurav Sharma, Senior Contributor at Forbes, observing that whilst first quarter profits at BP have decreased by 67% on lack of oil demand and the crude oil price crash, the company “sprung a surprise for the market by maintaining the company’s 10.5 U.S. cents per share dividend payment, hiked by 2.4% as recently as February.”

”The move,” Mr. Sharma noted, “will come as a relief to beleaguered U.K. income funds that have seen over $18.6 billion in payouts cancelled or suspended over the last six weeks.

“Collectively, HSBC, GSK, Royal Dutch Shell, British American Tobacco and BP accounted for 40% of FTSE 100 dividend payouts in 2019. With BP promising to payout, HSBC holding back following regulatory pressure, GSK, BAT and Shell, which hasn’t failed to pay a dividend since the Second World War II, appear to be in the bag.”

(Gaurav Sharma, “Profits Slump 67% At BP But Oil Major Maintains Dividend Despite Coronavirus Downturn,” Forbes, 28 April 2020)

On 29 April, Exxon Mobil Corp., based in Irving, Texas and the largest oil company in the Western Hemisphere, announced that for the second quarter 2020 it will pay a dividend of 87 cents per share. This is the same amount that was paid per share for the first quarter of 2020.

For the first time in 13 years, ExxonMobil “froze” its second quarter dividend to the amount paid in the first quarter.

Kevin Crowley of Bloomberg notes “Before now, Exxon had an uninterrupted streak of April increases going back to 2007.”

“Most analysts expected the world’s largest Western super majors, including Exxon, to defend their dividend at almost any cost given how important the payouts are to North American investors. Before today, Exxon was the third-largest dividend payer in the S&P 500 Index behind Microsoft Corp. and AT&T Inc., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.”

“The freeze may not derail Exxon’s multi decade streak of annual increases,” Mr. Crowley continues. “Even if the company maintains quarterly payouts at the current level for the rest of 2020, the annual outlay will be $3.48 a share, or 1.5% above 2019.

“’It’s definitely a sign of the times and to be expected given the price environment,’ said Jennifer Rowland, an analyst at Edward D. Jones &Co. The payout is “secure” because the company has capacity to take on debt to fund it, she said. On an annualized basis, the dividend will cost Exxon almost $15 billion this year.”

(Kevin Crowley, Exxon Freezes Dividend for First Time in 13 years Amid Crash, Bloomberg, 29 April 2020)

See:

Josh Gabbatiss, “IEA: Coronavirus impact on CO2 emissions six times larger than 2008 financial crisis,” Carbon Brief, 30 April 2020

“First Quarter 2020 Interim Dividend,” Royal Dutch Shell Plc, 30 April 2020

Laura Hurst, “Shell’s Dividend Cut Shows This Time is Different for Big Oil, ” Bloomberg, 30 April 2020

“Dividend Information, ExxonMobil dividends per common share,” Exxon Mobil, 29 April 2020

Kevin Crowley, “Exxon Freezes Dividend for First Time in 13 years Amid Crash,” Bloomberg, 29 April 2020

“BPp.l.c. Group results, First quarter 2020“, 28 April 2020

Gaurav Sharma, “Profits Slump 67% At BP But Oil Major Maintains DividendDespite Coronavirus Downturn,” Forbes, 28 April 2020

“Equinor reducing quarterly cash dividend for first quarter 2020 by 67%,” Equinor, 23 April 2020

Mikael Holter, “Norway Oil Giant Slashes Dividend to Weather Oil-Market Crash,” Bloomberg, 23 April 2020

Financial Times, “Shell dividend cut puts Big Oil investment case in focus” 

Simon Evans, “Why fossil fuel divestment won’t be easy,” Carbon Brief, 27 August 2014

Nathaniel Bullard, “Fossil fuel divestment: a $5 trillion challenge,” White Paper, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 25 August 2014

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coronavirus, climate change, the environment, & the arts: positive steps forward

“To my mind, one does not put oneself in place of the past; one only adds a new link.”

 Cy Twombly, quoted by Gagosian

“an elemental Dionysian force of madness rising, like a ‘fire that rises from the depths of the sea'”

Malcolm Bull, “Fire in the Water,” in Cy Twombly Bacchus Psilax Mainonmenos, exh. cat., New York, 2005, p. 55), quoted in Lot Essay, Cy Twombly (1928-2011), “Untitled” (acrylic on canvas, painted in 2005), Christie’s, Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, New York, 15 November 2017, Lot 15 B

Cy Twombly (1928-2011), “Untitled” (acrylic on canvas, painted in 2005). “Untitled” sold at the Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale of 15 November 2017 in New York realizing a price of US$ 46,437,500

Over ten feet high and sixteen feet in length, “Untitled” is the largest example from a group of giant-scaled paintings that Twombly created beginning in 2003 at age 75.

Twombly makes use of spirals of linear loops, culminating fifty years of regularly invoking scrawls, whirls, and writing/drawing.

“In his catalogue essay, “Fire in the Water” that accompanied the first exhibition of Twombly’s Bacchus series in 2005, Malcolm Bull argued that the abiding theme of these paintings was that of an elemental Dionysian force of madness rising, like a “fire that rises from the depths of the sea” (M. Bull, “Fire in the Water,” in Cy Twombly Bacchus Psilax Mainonmenos, exh. cat., New York, 2005, p. 55).’ – Lot Essay

Like Dionysian forces of madness, we are all experiencing the dislocation caused by the current COVID-19 pandemic.  

Individuals, families, supply chains, industries, markets, businesses, nations – all are affected.

This pandemic, however terrible, unexpected, and unprepared for, may in part be an outcome of behaviors that we have, however unwittingly, engaged in over decades.

We are all – individuals, peoples, cultures, animals, plants, functional objects and works of art, buildings, systems of transportation, agriculture, and education, etc. etc. etc. – inextricably embedded in nature. We are part and parcel of and subject to the forces of physics. Part and parcel of and subject to the elements and interactions of chemistry. 

As living, breathing creatures, moreover, and complex systems of systems. we are part and parcel of and subject to the complex forces of biology.  We are calibrated precisely, over long periods of time, to our biosphere.

If and should we take our biosphere for granted, fundamentally alter the composition of our atmosphere, and tamper with our climate, the unexpected can occur. Mayhem may let loose,

And so it has.

Yet, in the arts we are global. We reach across time, across space, across borders, across cultures, across nations. We represent mind and passion, interests and preferences. We come from an abundance of backgrounds and industries. 

We may lead, each in our own place, taking steps to realize our ambitions anew.

Together we will have impact.

While we work in our many spheres of activity, what steps, however simple, might we take to realize our objectives while mitigating risks of future such dislocations?

If we want “to do something to prevent disease emergence, first of all we need to seriously reconsider how we do business with the biosphere.”

“Q & A: A Harvard Expert on Environment and Health Discusses Possible Ties Between COVID and Climate,”

“We need to hear what nature is trying to tell us, which is clear: let’s be smarter about how we do business with the biosphere and stop disrupting the climate we depend on.” 

 Conversation on COVID-19 with Dr. Aaron Bernstein, Director of Harvard C-CHANGE”

Two recently published articles are insightful. In them, Dr. Aaron Bernstein, MD, MPH, Director of The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard C-CHANGE) offers guidance.

Please take a few minutes to read them in full:

Neela Banerjee, “Q & A: A Harvard Expert on Environment and Health Discusses Possible Ties Between COVID and Climate,” Inside Climate News, 12 March 2020

“A Conversation on COVID-19 with Dr. Aaron Bernstein, Director of Harvard C-CHANGE, ” Harvard C-CHANGE  

Excerpts follow, giving us some idea of what we probably already know but don’t always think about or consider in the decisions we make on a daily basis:

“The bottom line here is that if you wanted to prevent the spread of pathogens, the emergence of pathogens, … you wouldn’t transform the climate.”

“Q & A: A Harvard Expert on Environment and Health Discusses Possible Ties Between COVID and Climate,”

“The separation of health and environmental policy is a dangerous delusion. Our health entirely depends on the climate and the other organisms we share the planet with.”

“A Conversation on COVID-19 with Dr. Aaron Bernstein, Director of Harvard C-CHANGE”

Simply put, “The likelihood is high that this [a next pandemic] will happen. This has happened through human history but the data we have shows that the pace is accelerating. That’s not terribly surprising. We’re living in highly dense urban places. Air travel is much more prevalent than it used to be. And climate is a part of what is fundamentally reshaping our relationship with the natural world.”

“Q & A: A Harvard Expert on Environment and Health Discusses Possible Ties BetweenCOVID and Climate”

“You look at climate change, we have transformed the nature of the Earth. We have fundamentally changed the composition of the atmosphere, and, as such, we shouldn’t be surprised that that affects our health.”

“If you look at the emerging infectious diseases that have moved into people from animals or other sources over the last several decades,the vast majority of those are coming from animals. And the majority of those are coming from wild animals. We have transformed life onEarth. We are having a massive effect on how the relationships between all life on Earth operate and also with ourselves. We shouldn’t be surprised that these emerging diseases pop up.

“The principle is that we’re really changing how we relate to other species on Earth and that matters to our risk for infections.”

“Q & A: A Harvard Expert on Environment and Health Discusses Possible Ties Between COVID and Climate”

“Historically, we have grown as a species in partnership with the plants and animals we live with. So, when we change the rules of the game by drastically changing the climate and life on earth, we have to expect that it will affect our health.”

“A Conversation on COVID-19 with Dr. Aaron Bernstein, Director of Harvard C-CHANGE”

How might we in our private and business capacities be smarter about how we do business with the biosphere and stop disrupting the climate we depend on?

First, think.

All industries, markets, and economies, including the arts, the art market, and the art economy, are interconnected and all are viable only within our shared biosphere.

“Art” is not self-existent. Art as a phenomenon, culture as a phenomenon, works of art, cultures, collections of works of art, collectors, and all parties to art are inextricably embedded in and dependent on nature.

Take time and steps to learn about and understand the biosphere. Take steps to reconsider how we, in every sphere of work and activity, do business with the biosphere.

We have an opportunity to consider ways to optimize connections, culture, art, the business of art, and the biosphere jointly.

Some simple steps that can be taken:

Minimize travel

Whether curator, museum director, staff, or trustee, collector, dealer, gallerist, advisor, interested party – vet travel requirements.

Minimize travel powered by combustion of hydrocarbons.

“We need to drastically decrease our greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.”

“A Conversation on COVID-19 with Dr. Aaron Bernstein, Director of Harvard C-CHANGE”

It goes without saying that travel by foot or by bike is encouraged. Travel by electric-powered cars, buses, and trains – especially insofar as the electricity is generated from renewable, non-hydrocarbon sources – is also encouraged.

Amsterdam-based art dealer Jan Six XI, for instance, bikes to and from work, and across town to consult with experts. (Russell Shorto, “Rembrandt in the Blood: AnObsessive Aristocrat, Rediscovered,” The New York Times Magazine, 27 February 2019)

Work with local partners

We are all somewhere. We do not need to be everywhere.

If you need to do work or close a transaction somewhere else, research, identify, vet, and work with local partners.

Optimize resources and connections made available online

Information, images, and opportunities to meet and discuss face-to-face, even in groups, abound online. As we are now seeing in abundance, education and research can be conducted online. Relationships developed through written and verbal communications optimized online, by mail (even mail that goes through the post office), and by telephone.

As much activity is migrating online, vet also your online service partners and their delivery options.

This website, for instance, is hosted by AISO.net. AISO.net is powered 100% by solar energy generated on site. The company does not make use of carbon credits. Members of staff are knowledgeable, of course, very personable, and extraordinarily helpful. They are great to work with.

Reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions from ongoing operations of physical plants

Galleries,museums, homes, businesses, offices, schools and universities, hotels,hospitals – all house works and collections of art.

Real-life steps can be taken to reduce use of hydrocarbon-based energy sources and achieve net-zero energy.

Expert and experienced stakeholders including architects, engineers, designers, builders, energy consultants, and sources of finance are able and ready to assist.

Information about service providers will follow.

Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum can serve as a model. The Van Gogh Museum operates 100% on renewable (wind)energy. (See Van Gogh Museum, sustainability, and accompanying infographic.)

Change habits of mind and behavior

Allow time for foot and bike travel. Schedule meetings and work requirements accordingly. 

Enjoy the great outdoors en route to work, home, meetings, and shopping.

Enjoy your locality

See:

Cy Twombly (1928 – 2011), “Untitled” (acrylic on canvas, painted in 2005), Christie’s, Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, New York, 15 November 2017, Lot 15 B 

“Coronavirus, climate change, and the environment, A Conversation on COVID-19 with Dr. Aaron Bernstein, Director of Harvard C-CHANGE”, Harvard C-Change, 20 March 2020

Aaron Bernstein, MD, MPH, C-Change,Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Neela Banerjee, “Q&A:A Harvard Expert on Environment and Health Discusses Possible TiesBetween COVID and Climate,” Inside Climate News, 12 March 2020

Russell Shorto, “Rembrandt in the Blood: An Obsessive Aristocrat,Rediscovered,” The New York Times Magazine, 27 February 2019

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Art Basel to Offer Online Viewing Rooms

As latent risks emerge, industry, business, and individuals adapt. Opportunities, and benefits, are discovered in and developed from such adaptation. Opportunities and benefits are discovered also in forward-looking mitigation.

Inaugurated in 1970 by Basel gallerists Ernst Beyeler, Trudi Bruckner and Balz Hilt, owned and managed by Switzerland-based MCH Group, art fair giant Art Basel, facing health, travel, and concomitant business risks posed by the emergent Covid-19 virus, cancelled Art Basel Hong Kong 2020.

The Art Basel fairs, offered in Basel, Miami Beach, and Hong Kong, have succeeded as an effective venue for introducing galleries, works of art, and collectors to each other.

The fairs, while offering face-to-face interactions, are, however, premised on travel, often long-distance. The fairs are premised further on the gathering of large numbers of people together in one place at one time.

The travel and costs (staff, booth rentals, insurance, hotels and lodging, shipping of works of art, …) involved with the fair – and the many art fairs that have developed over the years – are expensive for galleries and collectors alike.

The travel, further, can increase risk. Combustion of hydrocarbon-based fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 

Carbon dioxide molecules are precisely calibrated to attract and retain, in our atmosphere, photons of thermal energy that reach the earth from the sun. (See infographic.) Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere leads therefore to greater thermal energy (heat) in the atmosphere.

Acidification of the oceans, that themselvesabsorb about 30% of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, also takes place.

Increased atmospheric heat leads to consequences such as melting of arctic permafrost, melting of glaciers, sea level rise, fires, storms, the release of pathogens and concomitant health risks. (See infographic developed by Zurich-based reinsurance giant Swiss Re.)

 With regard to large numbers of people gathering together in one place at one time, this currently may pose a risk of transmission of the emergent coronavirus (COVID-19).

To reduce such risk, the Swiss Federal Council, on 28 February 2020, issued an ordinance forbidding the holding of public or private events in Switzerland where more than 1,000 people are present at the same time.

MCH Group has, accordingly, not only cancelled Art Basel Hong Kong 2020 but has also postponed further events and trade shows such as the Baselworld Watch and Jewellery Show 2020 (until January-February 2021), the garden exhibition Giardina in Zurich, and Habitat-Jardin in Lausanne.

Fortunately there are means of bringing galleries, works of art, and collectors together that are premised neither on long-distance travel nor on the gathering in one place of multitudes of people.

Art Basel has been developing such a means, an initiative that, as “the art market continues to evolve, exemplifies its longstanding commitment to fostering a healthy art world ecosystem by creating new ways for its galleries to reach collectors from across the globe.”

The initiative is a digital-only platform for Art Basel’s galleries and collectors. The inaugural edition of Art Basel’s Online Viewing Rooms are planned to go live on 20 March 2020.

“Online Viewing Rooms will give visitors the opportunity to browse thousands of artworks presented by Art Basel participating galleries, many of which will be online exclusives. The exhibiting gallery can then be contacted directly for sales inquiries. The Viewing Rooms will run in parallel to the three shows in Basel, Miami Beach, and Hong Kong.”


“Art Basel to launch Online Viewing Rooms,” Art Basel

While recognizing “’the essential personal interactions that continue to underlie the  art market,’” Art Basel Global Director Marc Spiegler notes that “’the Online Viewing Rooms will provide galleries with a further possibility for engaging with our global audiences.'”

All the galleries that were accepted for the cancelled 2020 Art Basel Hong Kong have been invited to participate, at no cost, in the launch of the Online Viewing Rooms.

Art Basel is not the first to organization to provide a means for galleries, works of art, and collectors to meet online. New York-based Artsy has been doing so for several years.

The process of selecting works of art, acquiring them, and developing a collection requires intent, effort, patience, and work. Such work is conducted in increments over a long-term.

Relationships of mutual trust and reliance, between collectors, galleries, and dealers, some private, are developed.

Qualifications of all parties are established. Buyers and sellers alike vet each other for acknowledgement and understanding of contract law as well as willingness to agree and adhere to contractual terms.

As works of art are identified for purchase, high-resolution images taken from multiple angles can be shared. Condition reports, provenance, and valuations provided.

The process enables collectors to learn and value not only the aesthetic, historical, and, increasingly, financial qualities of such works of art but also the supply chain logistics.

Supply chain logistics are themselves complex, often crossing cultures, history, collections, sovereign entities such as cities, states, and nations, and laws.

Supply chain logistics and the logistics of collections management evolving to include collaborations not only with art professionals but also with those with in a variety of industries. These industries include science, tech, law, engineering, energy, water, design, architecture, finance, and, insurance.

Insurance especially in a new iteration: in regard to transparent, data-driven identification of risk together with public/private collaborations structured to foster preemptive mitigation of risk.

See:

“Art Basel to launch Online Viewing Rooms,” Art Basel

Anny Shaw, “MCH Group postpones Baselworld watch fair as Swiss authorities ban large events over coronavirus fears,” The Art Newspaper, 28 February2020

Christian Jecker, “MCH Group postpones forthcoming events,” MCH Group Media Release, 28 February 2020

“Carbon Dioxide Absorbs and Re-Emits Infrared Radiation,” UCAR Center for Science Education

Swiss Re, “Special Feature: It’s existential – climate change and life & health,” 22 May 2019

NOAA, “Ocean Acidification”

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Acknowledging risk, Sotheby’s revises 2020 Hong Kong Spring Sale

“Monitoring the impact of the Covid-19 virus and the resulting travel restrictions” – in effect acknowledging, and attempting to manage, the health, travel, and business risks that the coronavirus poses – Sotheby’s has revised its 2020 Hong Kong Spring Sale.

The Modern Art Evening Sale, the Contemporary Art Evening Sale, and the Contemporary Art Day Sale will take place in New York on 16 April.

Further 2020 Hong Kong Spring sales have been re-scheduled from April to July. The plan is that they will take place in Hong Kong.

The revised schedule can be found here: “Revised Schedule For Sotheby’s Hong Kong 2020 Spring Auction Series Announced.”

Sotheby’s publishes a message from Kevin Ching, CEO of Sotheby’s Asia:

“We have been closely monitoring the impact of the Covid-19 virus and the resulting travel restrictions.

“After careful consideration and reflection on nearly 50 years of working with our clients in Asia, we have made the strategic decision to continue to hold our major Modern and Contemporary Art auctions in April but relocate them to New York and to postpone the balance of our spring auctions to early July in Hong Kong.

“April in New York represents the best possible venue and timing for our consignors of Modern and Contemporary art. We have scheduled these sales at times that will make it easy for our clients in Asia to participate and our global team stands ready to activate the international market for the great works of art we have assembled.

“Similarly, given the nature of the property and collectors in our other categories, we have decided to postpone those auctions until early July when we can safely hold a traveling exhibition across Asia and present our sale week in Hong Kong.”

Kevin Ching, CEO, Sotheby’s Asia

See:

“Revised Schedule for Sotheby’s Hong Kong Spring Auction Series Announced,” Sotheby’s, 24 February 2020

“Revised Schedule For Sotheby’s Hong Kong 2020 Spring Auction Series Announced” and “Sale Calendar,” Sotheby’s

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is sexy really a measure?

With Art Basel Hong Kong 2020 cancelled, art institutions and openings in China delayed, important spring art auctions in New York postponed, New York’s Art Week 2020 postponed, private museums closing, travel impeded by the COVID-19 virus, wildfires raging in Australia, and floods in Venice, we may rightly ask what the heck is going on.

Henry Moore: Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 5

Behaviors and institutions that we may have taken for granted – art fairs, travel, museums, museum openings, art loans, traveling exhibitions, gallery openings, the buildings that house works and collections of art, cities, heritage – show themselves as vulnerable.

Vulnerable to various risks – geopolitical, natural (flood, fire), illness, travel (viruses are clever particles, requiring host cells in order to replicate; when host cells travel, so do viruses), funding, disengagement, generational change, wrongdoing, and “art-washing” among them.

“In a country where there has always been more space than people, where the land and wildlife are cherished like a Picasso, nature is closing in. Fueled by climate change and the world’s refusal to address it, the fires that have burned across Australia … are forcing Australians to imagine an entirely new way of life.”

(Damien Cave and Matthew Abbot writing in The New York Times, The End of Australia as We Know It, 15 February 2020)

“Buildings are deteriorating faster than ever before. It’s indicative of the changing environment and climate.”

Syfur Rahman, Department of Archeology of Bangladesh, quoted in
“Heritage on the Edge, How people around the world are protecting their cultural sites against climate change,” Google Arts & Culture in collaboration with CyArt and ICOMOS

“Our shared history is at risk”

(“Heritage on the Edge, How people around the world are protecting their cultural sites against climate change,” Google Arts & Culture in collaboration with CyArt and ICOMOS)

The thousand-year equilibrium long maintained in Venice may, in the space of a century, have been destroyed. With little regard for the safeguards balance provides, risks of flooding, loss of habitats, and loss of livelihoods are increasing.

Venice is “a city that for over a thousand years has built a wonderful equilibrium between a human component, ecological component, art, nature. And in the last century, we have basically almost destroyed that balance.”

(Shaul Bassi, director of the Center for Humanities and Social Change at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, quoted in Sylvia Poggioli, “With Waters Rising And Its Population Falling, What Is Venice’s Future?”, NPR, 30 November 2019).

In the face of protests, coronavirus, and the cancellation of Art Basel Hong Kong 2020, Tim Schneider of Artnet News asks

“Did the coronavirus merely provide a politically agnostic opportunity to call off an event that many Western exhibitors alleged had already lost viability after the ongoing pro-democracy protests convinced a significant number of their buyers and artists to opt out months earlier? 

“And if so, did the organization take until February 6 to decide strictly because its international galleries were facing shipping deadlines? Or was something else entirely at work?”

He suggests that

“To decipher the answers, it turns out that we may have to look in what many, if not most, people view as the single unsexiest realm of arcana in the entire art market: insurance policies.”

(Tim Schneider, “The Gray Market: Why the Coronavirus Canceled Art Basel Hong Kong When the Protests Couldn’t (and Other Insights),” Artnet News, 10 February 2010)

Is sexy really a measure? Is insurance so arcane?

Let’s for a moment look at insurance, and risk, from another angle: able to track perils in real time, Swiss Re is changing the way it understands and models risk. Assessing risk and underwriting risk using real-time data rather than past data, Swiss Re will offer insurance products structured not only as ex ante compensation products but also as anticipative risk management services.

“With new insights from an ability to track perils in real time, we are able to change the way we model and understand risk. This will allow new means of risk assessment and underwriting, augmenting our traditional process of using past data. These shifts will see the nature of insurance products begin to change from ex ante compensation packages to anticipative risk management services.”

(“Underwriting: The Next Generation,” Edi Schmid, Chairman Swiss Re Institute and Group Chief Underwriting Officer, 30 April 2019)

Real value may be developed through collaboration with stakeholders, public and private, globally, together with expertise and capital offered by organizations such as Swiss Re.

What are forward-looking modeling and understanding of risk? What might a shift from ex ante compensation packages to the provision of anticipative risk management services enable?

How might long-term value be developed while using real-time data to anticipate and manage risk?

Let us work to better understand risk and risk management. We might then position ourselves to better enable long-term protections of works and collections of art together with the heritage, information, and value they represent.

See:

“Virus,” Science Daily

“Underwriting: The Next Generation,” Edi Schmid, Chairman Swiss Re Institute and Group Chief Underwriting Officer, 30 April 2019,

Damien Cave and Matthew Abbott, “The End of Australia as We Know It,” The New York Times, 15 February 2020

Georgina Adam, “Not here to stay: what makes private art museums suddenly close,” The Art Newspaper, 13 February 2020

Elizabeth A. Harris, “As Virus Tightens Grip on China, the Art World Feels the Squeeze,” The New York Times, 13 February 2020

“‘You Want to Pull Your Hair Out’: Artists and Gallerists Respond to the Long-Awaited Cancellation of Art Basel Hong Kong,” Ysabelle Cheung, Artnet News, 7 February 2020

Tim Schneider, “The Gray Market: Why the Coronavirus Canceled Art Basel Hong Kong When the Protests Couldn’t (and Other Insights),” Artnet News, 10 February 2020

Alexander Walter, “Opening of Tadao Ando’s He Art Museum in China delayed due to coronavirus fears,” Archinect, 3 February 2020

“Heritage on the Edge, How people around the world are protecting their cultural sites against climate change,” Google Arts & Culture in collaboration with CyArt and ICOMOS

Sylvia Poggioli, “With Waters Rising And Its Population Falling, What Is Venice’s Future?”, NPR, 30 November 2019

Image: Henry Moore’s “Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 5” (bronze, 1963-1964) overlooking the Øresund at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark. Donated to the museum by the Ny Carlsbergfondat.

 

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art, real estate, luxury, & global risks

“Humanity has become remarkably adept at understanding how to mitigate conventional risks that can be relatively easily isolated and managed with standard risk-management approaches. But we are much less competent when it comes to dealing with complex risks in the interconnected systems that underpin our world, such as organizations, economies, societies and the environment.

“There are signs of strain in many of these systems: our accelerating pace of change is testing the absorptive capacities of institutions, communities and individuals.

“When risk cascades through a complex system, the danger is not of incremental damage but of “runaway collapse” or an abrupt transition to a new, suboptimal status quo.”

See: “The Global Risks Report 2018, 13th Edition” | World Economic Forum (WEF); Strategic Partners: Marsh & McLennan Companies, Zurich Insurance Company; Academic Advisors: National University of Singapore, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, University of Pennsylvania

#art #artmarket #collectionsmanagement #data #analytics #risk #riskanalysis #riskmanagement #riskmitigation #climaterisk #insurance #insurancerisk #realestate #commercialrealestate #culturalrealestate  #culturalheritage #luxury #resilience #CO2

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Paris floods | the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, & the Musée de l’Orangerie launch their Plans de Protection Contre les Inondations (PPCI)

The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, and the Musée de l’Orangerie have each launched their Plan de Protection Contre les Inondations (PPCI; protection plan against flooding). The Musée du Louvre has closed the lower level of its department of Islamic Arts until Sunday (28 January) as a “preventive measure” from flood damage.”

See: “Rising River Seine causes closure at Musée du Louvre” | Anna Sansom, The Art Newspaper, 25 January 2018

#Louvre #MuséeduLouvre #Muséed’Orsay #Muséedel’Orangerie #art #artcollections #collectionsmanagement #risk #riskmanagement #Paris #flooding #PPCI #PlandeProtectionContrelesInondations #museums #resilience #luxury #smartluxury #CO2 #realestate #culturalrealestate #design #engineering

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art, risk management, & “rolling disasters” as the new normal

There is worry in the insurance industry that “rolling disasters” may become the new normal, the effects of climate change that many scientists believe have resulted in dryer conditions in the west coast and more intense hurricanes in the east coast. “Climate change is a great concern to the art insurance industry, particularly because of the hurricanes we are seeing,” Quinn said. Both AXA and Chubb are active in promoting research in climate change, recognizing that catastrophic natural events may prove to be an annual occurrence.

Insurers are concerned especially over works of art in private homes.

Insurers in areas such as California may seek to limit their risks. The extent of the damage in regions of California affected by the recent wildfires, for instance, may well increase the cost and limit the availability of fine art insurance.

See:

“As Natural Disasters Loom, What You Should Know About Insuring Your Art” | Daniel Grant, The Observer, 18 January 2018

#art #artmarket #collections #collectionsmanagement #insurance #fineartinsurance #climaterisk #risk #riskmanagement #fire #wildfire #hurricanes #flooding #risingseas #luxury #smartluxury #resilience #realestate #CO2 #H2O

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coastal property, coastal property values, & flood risk

For those considering an investment in real property (residential or commercial) along the eastern seaboard of the United States, insights are offered in an article published in April by the New York Times, “When Rising Seas Transform Risk Into Certainty” (Brooke Jarvis, 18 April 2017).

Some highlights follow. The upshot? Conduct your discovery and due diligence carefully. Try to think long-ish term (what are your long-term investment investment horizons, when do you plan to exit, e.g., sell your house or property, etc.). Consider a  variety of numbers (not only interest rates, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, square footage, appraisals, etc., but also sea levels, projected sea levels, flood zones, insurance premiums, any projected rise of insurance premiums, etc.). Ask your lender (if you are financing), real estate professional, and insurance professional lots and lots of questions.

  • Economists aren’t sure if coastal property values will decline gradually, as the life expectancy of homes shrinks, or precipitously, “the first time a lender refuses to make a mortgage on a nearby house or an insurer refuses to issue a homeowner’s policy.” (Sean Becketti, chief economist, Freddie Mac)
  • “Hundred-year flood zone” | A hundred-year flood zone sounds like sounds like a factor of time, as if the land were expected to flood only once every 100 years. What it really means is the land has a one percent (1%) chance of flooding each year.
  • If the property that you are considering buying is in a “hundred-year flood zone,” then in order to get a federally backed mortgage, you will be required to pay for flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program (N.F.I.P.).
  • Congress created the N.F.I.P. (the National Flood Insurance Program) in the late 1960s
  • The N.F.I.P. was intended to encourage safer building practices
    • The N.F.I.P. offers insurance coverage, some of it subsidized, to communities that meet floodplain-management requirements;
    • People that want to buy a house in a flood-prone area are required to buy N.F.I.P. insurance coverage.
    • The N.F.I.P. provides grants for mitigation projects, like elevating houses, meant to reduce flooding damage.
  • Critics of the N.F.I.P. observe that N.F.I.P. flood insurance, by bailing people out repeatedly and by spreading the true costs of risk, incentivizes people to build, and stay, in flood-prone areas instead of encouraging safer building practices.
  • As storm damage becomes more costly, the N.F.I.P. is getting deeper and deeper (in the order of tens of billions of dollars) into debt. The expense of insuring coastal properties is increasing. Taxpayer-subsidized premiums are not able to meet the costs of insuring the coastal properties.
  • In 2012 and 2014, Congress responded to the N.F.I.P.’s troubles with bills known as Biggert-Waters and Grimm-Waters.
  • The Biggert-Waters bill of 2012 cut subsidies and phased out grandfathered rates so that premiums would start to reflect the true risk that properties face, achieving “actuarial soundness.”
  • Prospective buyers are disturbed less about the risk of high waters and more about the certainty of high premiums.
  • Insurance provides stability, both financial and mental, in an uncertain world, and implies “mastery of risk”.
    • As waters rise, flooding in low-lying places without sea walls will become more and more common.
    • The presence of water will become less about chance and more about certainty.
    • Few insurers are willing to bet against a certainty.
  • The math of the “collective hedge against helplessness” (insurance) in the face of climate insecurity will get harder.
  • AIR Worldwide models the risks of catastrophic events for insurance companies and governments.
  • According to AIR Worldwide, $1.1 trillion in property assets along the Eastern Seaboard lie within the path of a hundred-year storm surge.
    • $1.1 trillion represents only the risk on the East Coast under current sea levels.
  • According to a 2008 analysis by Risk Management Solutions (R.M.S.) and Lloyd’s of London, annual losses from storm surges in coastal areas globally could double by the 2030s.
  • In 2015, the N.F.I.P. asked R.M.S. and AIR Worldwide to update its modeling of financial exposure from possible storms to properties it insures across the country
  • In 2016 and 2017, the N.F.I.P. transferred some of its risk to large, private companies known as reinsurers (insurance for insurance companies)
  • A vote to reauthorize (or not) the N.F.I.P. is scheduled to take place in September of this year
  • Some believes it is time to start limiting coverage for properties that are flooded over and over.
    • Multiple losses “should force us to shift our position where we make an offer of mitigation to a homeowner, and if they do not choose to take it, we don’t renew their policy.”
  • Flooding is the most common, and most expensive, natural disaster in the United States.
  • Private insurers have long declined to cover flood risk.
  • Some private insurers are beginning to show an interest in covering flood insurance for the first time.
    • Again, prospective buyers are disturbed less about the risk of high waters and more about the certainty of high premiums.
    • The end of subsidized coverage and the possibility of higher premiums encourages private insurers
    • As flood insurance premiums increase,
    • private insurers have a greater incentive to compete.
    • Private insurers can seek and obtain private underwriting from companies such as Lloyd’s of London and A.I.G. subsidiaries.
  • More accurate risk analysis, with powerful computers running more simulations that include more variables, also incentivizes private insurers
    • Premiums from private insurers can now cost 30 to 35 percent less than those policies bought through FEMA
    • Yet, private companies issue such policies in the belief that the outcomes against which risk is covered will not occur
    • Private insurance is “of course” not interested in covering severe-repetitive-loss properties or buildings whose exposure is higher than what can be recouped in premiums.
  • Mike Vernon, an insurance agent in the Hampton Roads area of Norfolk/Virginia Beach, gets most of his business from referrals from real estate agents. He observes
    • “We’re often actually making the building worse to bring down premiums,” filling in basements, or preparing a house to let water flow through it instead of keeping it out (yes, the house may be damaged by moisture, but at least it won’t be pushed off its foundation). “Or we’re eliminating something good, like a sunroom on a slab.”
    • “People are getting killed. To an appraiser it’s still worth $300,000, but to the real world it ain’t worth nothing, because it’s not going to sell.”

See:

“When Rising Seas Transform Risk Into Certainty” | Brooke Jarvis, The New York Times, 18 April 2017

The National Flood Insurance Program (N.F.I.P.) | FEMA

“Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 Timeline” | FEMA

“H.R. 3370 – Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014” | 113th Congress, Congress.gov

#realestate #risk #riskmanagement #propertyvalues #floodrisk #insurance #NFIP #FEMA #resilience #smartluxury #art #collections #collectionsmanagement

 

 

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Blackstone Real Estate is optimizing art as a targeted value-add initiative for its NY real estate portfolio

Blackstone Real Estate is optimizing art as a targeted value-add initiative for its real estate portfolio throughout New York City.

Blackstone is initiating a partnership Hunter College to recognize talented emerging artists while concomitantly giving visitors to its building portfolio throughout the city access to unique works of art.

Last week Jon Gray, Global Head of Real Estate at Blackstone, introduced a new exhibition featuring artwork by students currently enrolled in the Hunter College Master of Fine Arts program: Talia Levitt, Madhini Nirmal, Leonard Reibstein, and Andy Van Dinh.

These works of art, both paintings and large-scale works on paper, will be displayed for a year in the lobby of 5 Bryant Park.

Blackstone is the world’s largest real estate private equity firm with $102 billion of investor capital and $200 billion of gross assets under management.

Blackstone seeks to acquire high quality investments at discounts to replacement cost. The company improves the properties through hands-on management and targeted value-add initiatives.

The breadth of Blackstone’s real estate portfolio provides valuable real-time proprietary market data. Blackstone believes this information enables the company to identify mispriced and/or out-of-favor asset classes more rapidly than its competitors.

Blackstone real estate also operates one of the leading real estate finance platforms, including management of the publicly traded Blackstone Mortgage Trust (NYSE:BXMT).

See:

“Blackstone Partners with Hunter College for Student Art Exhibition at 5 Bryant Park” | Blackstone Blog, 12 June 2017

Blackstone Real Estate

#art #realestate #finance #risk #collectionsmanagement #portfoliomanagement #HunterCollege #HunterCollegeMFA #NewYork #Manhattan #Blackstone #privateequity #riskanalysis #risk management #collections