Artmark receives EUR 1 million funding from Millenium Bank

Newsroom 04/07/2011 | 12:19

Artmark art auction house has changed its shareholder structure, so that founding attorney Alexandru Baldea now has 80 percent of the company’s shares and CEO Manuela Plapcianu, 20 percent. Thus, the initially associated Swiss fund has completely renounced of its shares. Artmark has also become the first Romanian auction house to receive financing from a bank, reaching a total value of EUR one million.

The contract with Millenium Bank has been signed for five years, a time in which the auction house will invest the funds in projects meant to aid the Romanian art market mature.

“Three years after Armark began its activity on the Romanian market, the full restitution of the loan obtained from the investment fund opens new perspectives not only in the consolidation of current business models, but also in development directions. For this, new financing was necessary and we obtained it from Millenium Bank. We are happy to know that the bank representatives responded positively to our collaboration proposal,” stated Plapcianu.

In its three years of existence, Artmark has organized over 30 art auctions, having sold over 3,000 works of art and collection pieces. The public sales of Artmark have grown from EUR 1.76 million in 2009 to EUR 5.5 million in 2010 and EUR 4.75 million in the first semester of 2011, on a market of public sales that has grown from EUR 3.7 million in 2009 to approximately 8.3 million in 2010, reaching EUR 6.6 million in the first half of 2011.