Andy Warhol-based fund says art boom to go on

By Jan Dahinten

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A hedge fund that invests in prints by Andy Warhol, the pop artist known for his brightly colored paintings of Campbell soup cans, is betting the boom in the art market will continue because of increasing global wealth.

The prediction comes as prices for paintings and sculptures at art auctions in New York and London are fetching tens of million of dollars as new buyers lock horns with long-time collectors in a battle for masters ranging from Monet, Matisse and Picasso to Bacon, Warhol and Hirst.

"There will be a correction in the art market but it will not be a prolonged correction. I would not expect it to be more than six months," Federico Moccia, director and founder of investment firm Cannonball Funds, told Reuters in an interview.

"The U.S. subprime crisis didn't affect the art market. But should the economy in the United States slow down more or should there be a financial crisis, something that makes people less confident, prices at auction may level off or come down. But people who have not entered the market yet will see that as buying opportunity."

Moccia, a former JPMorgan investment banker who set up his own firm in 1998 and manages $600 million in assets in its funds of hedge funds, is focused on investments in Warhol's works for now but may look elsewhere for returns for his art fund.

"We will continue to do Warhol. Clearly prices have become expensive so it will become harder to find pieces that make sense today. We don't only look at Warhol but also others such as (Roy) Lichtenstein or Keith Haring."

MAO MONEY

Moccia's Cannnonball Art Fund, which he describes as an asset-backed fund, requires individual investors to put up at least 100,000 euros ($142,000).