A Ferrari from the 1950s — or a fraction of it — could be part of an investor's portfolio thanks to the latest fund launch from Italian manager Azimut Holding.
The money manager, which has about €90 billion ($98.9 billion) in assets, is fundraising for its first vintage car fund.
Azimut has partnered with large Italian car dealer Rossocorsa, which is authorized to repair vintage Ferrari cars, to buy and sell cars with historical value.
The fund's strategy is all about purchasing investment-grade cars with strong acquisition potential as well as increasing their value by purchasing models with complex restoration needs, said Giorgio Medda, New York-based CEO and global head of asset management and fintech at Azimut.
"This will create liquidity to support evergreen fund structure," he said.
The price of cars is worked out through supply and demand and scarcity value factors, he said. The fund is always open to subscriptions, he said. After two years, investors will be able to start redeeming annually a maximum of 15% of initial investments, he added.
Speaking about the motivation to launch the fund, Mr. Medda said that in the last 10 years Azimut strived to help investors build more diversified portfolios. "We have been looking into real assets and we looked at different alternative real assets, and we understood there was a market for cars," he said.
"The performance of vintage cars is tracked by an index since 2000 and it has been outstanding," he said, noting that the value increased some 15 times.
Investors in the fund, which is aimed at institutional and retail investors, can make commitments in the traditional way with cash but can also commit physical cars that are worth about €1 million.
"It's helping car collectors to diversify their car collections," Mr. Medda added.
Mr. Medda said the fund could be targeting about €100 million over the next 12 months.
