EQS-News: Weng Fine Art: Sale of the Artnet Stake completed

Press Release from June 11, 2025

Weng Fine Art: Sale of the Artnet Stake completed

The sale of the stake in artnet AG (Artnet) has now been completed and the purchase price of almost EUR 20 million for the Artnet shares acquired has been paid to Rüdiger K. Weng and the companies under his control. Weng Fine Art AG (WFA) accounted for EUR 15,187,500 of this amount.

WFA will use the high cash inflow primarily to reduce its bank liabilities and, as a result, will terminate its cooperation with three banks for the time being in the coming months. This will reduce the number of financing partners to three or four banks in the near future. The management plans to invest the remaining part of the income in the development of promising new business areas, among other things. The Management Board will provide details on this later this year.

WFA CEO Rüdiger K. Weng comments on discussions about a potentially even higher takeover price for Artnet shareholders as follows: "In my view, speculation about a possibly higher consideration for the shareholders as part of the takeover process is absurd. Beowolff Capital is likely to have already acquired or been promised more than 70% of the shares by now, so there is no longer any room for any promising counteroffer from any side."

Rüdiger K. Weng's opinion on hopes of a higher price in a possible squeeze-out procedure is as follows: "Hans Neuendorf and Family & Friends have continuously drawn on the assets and income of Artnet for over two decades until both the equity and the cash holdings were completely depleted. Without a capital injection from outside, Artnet would probably have had to file for insolvency within the next few weeks or months. Against this background, the purchase price of EUR 11.25 per share that I negotiated is already optimized and can only be justified by Artnet's very valuable brand and its wealth of data. In contrast, I expect the figures for the operations in 2024 and 2025, which will be published soon, will look catastrophic. Against this background, I consider it extremely unlikely that an even higher price could be achieved in a possible squeeze-out. WFA and I have therefore decided to sell all our shares to Beowolff Capital. However, it is possible that WFA will acquire a stake in the company resulting from the merger of Artnet and Artsy at a later date."

About Weng Fine Art

Weng Fine Art AG (WFA) is a leading art trading company in Europe. The company, based in Monheim am Rhein, was founded in 1994 by Rüdiger K. Weng and has been the only art trading company in Europe listed on the stock exchange since 2012. With currently three business divisions and a team of art, finance and digital experts, the company serves customers all over the world. The company focuses on trading works by internationally renowned 20th and 21st century artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Wassily Kandinsky, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys, Ai Weiwei, Damien Hirst and Robert Longo.

Weng Fine Art currently concentrates on the business-to-business sector and supplies the major international auction houses as well as renowned dealers and galleries. With its Swiss subsidiary ArtXX AG, WFA operates an e-commerce business for limited serial artworks by the most important contemporary artists under the “Weng Contemporary” brand.

Together with partners from the financial and technology industry, Weng Art Invest is involved in the development of the digital art market based on blockchain technology in order to facilitate access to the art market for collectors and investors and to create transparency for art as an asset class. Further information can be found at: www.wengfineart.com