On Monday, Christie’s New York presided over the record-setting sale of a Picasso painting. “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)”, 1954-55, closed out at $179.4 million–a 462% increase in value over the painting’s $31.9 million purchase in 1997– and set a new record for the most ever paid for a single work of art sold at auction.
To put that in perspective,we thought we’d compile a list of public Chester County companies and translate their market capitalization into Picasso paintings. Check it out.
1.AmerisourceBergen (NYSE:ABC) : 140.4 Picassos
2. Triumph Group (NYSE: TGI): 18.78 Picassos
3. West Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:WST): 21.68 Picassos
4. Liberty Property Trust (NYSE: LPT) : 29.09 Picassos
5. CubeSmart (NYSE: CUBE) : 22.1 Picassos
Lets pretend that all Picasso paintings are created equal and all capable of bringing home at least $179.4 million at auction.So for just over 22 Picassos you could own one of the nation’s largest storage companies with CubeSmart–a company that could probably store the collections of The Louvre ten times over. There’s some food for thought.
Read more about the the painting and art as commodity over at the New York Times.
