Exclusive Interview With Thierry Ehrmann, the Founder and CEO of Artprice.com

13 Jun 2011 01:00 Africa/Lagos


Exclusive Interview With Thierry Ehrmann, the Founder and CEO of Artprice.com

PARIS, June 13, 2011/PRNewswire/ -- This 9-page interview explains how Artprice imposed itself as the world leader in art market information, and how it then became the 1st worldwide market place in volume for art works with its standardised market place. These 37 questions, sometimes uncompromising, enable to understand Artprice's incredible history in the last 20 years. The interview also provides a global analysis of art markets in the world, with China that is now the leading market place, its leading position being confirmed for 2011. In the course of this long interview, Thierry Ehrmann also review Artprice's adventure on the Stock Market, with the best scoring in Europe on a regulated stock market in 2005 and 2011.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20110609/461260 )

These 9 pages are available in English, for accuracy issues.

1. Could you remind us of how Artprice was created?

2. Who were these targets?

3. Could you continue with how Artprice was created?

4. So what is your added value on this documentary fund?

5. How do you produce your reference prices since a painting is by its very nature unique?

6. How have you been able to get around this problem in such little time?

7. What do you reply to those who ask "why does everyone go on Artprice?"

8. Is the money raised on the stock market, along with funds from the Serveur group and the Bernard Arnault group behind the success of Artprice acquisitions?

9. How do you manage reproduction rights for works on line?

10. Would it be possible to create another "Artprice"?

11. How are you sure you will do auctions?

12. How is it possible to be so behind, in terms of computerisation and the Internet in 2011?

13. Why have you chosen the Abode of Chaos, dixit the New York Times, as Artprice's headquarters, is that provocation or strategy?

14. How would you value Artprice?

15. Could you be clearer, with a specific example?

16. Even your critics are on Artprice?

17. What will be the level of commission you earn on the transactions?

18. Is Artprice ripe for a takeover bid?

19. Does Artprice have any competitors?

20. Is Artprice, being the world leader, abusing its dominant position?

21. Did you try and buy out Artnet?

22. It would appear that other DNS can access the Artprice databases...

23. Do you have any new clients?

24. How is Artprice's financial health?

25. With the volumes we have seen, why hasn't the declaration threshold been crossed?

26. What about the Chinese funds?

27. How long do you think it will be before the legislative course is completed for the Law on the liberation of auction sales?

28. Why haven't you moved away?

29. What have you got to say about the ISF (tax on fortune)?

30. Can we be thinking about rapid transition to the SRD Long Only?

31. Have you backtested your system for future on-line auctions?

32. How far has Artprice penetrated the Chinese market?

33. Did you have any difficulties in becoming world leader? You're sometimes criticised for your procedural attitude?

34. Can we hope for a dividend in the near future?

35. What will be the impact of the change of status after the law on the annual turnover figure?

36. Can we consider that at EUR30 we are only at the beginning of the story?

37. And to end with, what is your prediction for the future of Artprice?

Thierry Ehrmann:

With regard to our commitments, which at the time were very ambitious on the 1999 introductory prospectus, we have met them all, well beyond the prospectus actually, coming through the 2000 NASDAQ crisis, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the 2003 war in Iraq and the big financial crisis which began in 2007 and which is far from over. With this decade, which has been the most catastrophic in the past two centuries, I know of only very few companies listed on the regulated stock market which have come out alive, without increasing their capital and which, during this same period, have acquired an undisputed world-leader position. To close this interview, I sincerely believe that we have only seen 10% of the history of Artprice.

Full interview:

http://serveur.serveur.com/Press_Release/pressreleaseEN.htm#20110606

Source: http://www.artprice.com (c)1987-2011 thierry Ehrmann

Discover the Alchemy and the universe of Artprice: http://web.artprice.com/video/

Artprice is the world leader in art market information with over 27 million auction prices and indices covering over 450,000 artists. Artprice Images(R) offers unlimited access to the largest database of art market information in the world, a library of 108,000,000 images and engravings of art works from 1700 to the present day. Artprice continuously updates its databases with information from 3,600 international auction houses and provides daily information on art market trends to the main financial press agencies and to 6,300 press titles worldwide. Artprice offers standardised adverts to its 1,300,000 members (member log in) and is the world's leading market place for buying and selling works of art (source: Artprice).

Artprice is listed on Eurolist by Euronext Paris: Euroclear: 7478 - Bloomberg: PRC - Reuters: ARTF

Artprice releases: http://serveur.serveur.com/press_release/pressreleaseen.htm

The Art Market in real time by Artprice on Twitter: http://twitter.com/artpricedotcom/

Contact: Josette Mey - tel: +33-(0)478-220-000, e-mail: ir@artprice.com

Source: Artprice.com