Hauser & Wirth’s UK profits slide 90% as global art market struggles

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Profits at the UK subsidiary of Hauser & Wirth, one of the world’s largest and most influential art galleries, fell almost 90 per cent in 2024 as the global art market struggled with a multiyear slump.

Hauser & Wirth, which represents artists Frank Bowling, George Condo and Cindy Sherman, said pre-tax profit fell to £1.2mn last year from £9.3mn in 2023, as revenue more than halved to £68mn, from £144mn the year before.

Hauser & Wirth has 18 galleries or art spaces around the world, with two in the UK, five in the US and six in Switzerland. The British branches are a gallery on Savile Row in Mayfair and a sprawling former farmstead in Somerset.

In the UK accounts, the gallery said the drop was “due to lower secondary-market sales”, where it resells artwork, as opposed to the primary market, for new artwork. Trade in the secondary market can turn on a few high-value items per year and thus can be lumpy.

The privately owned company said its global financial results, which it does not make public, were “aligned” in 2024 with the previous year’s “successful performance”.

“Hauser & Wirth is a global business with extensive activity in the US, Europe and Asia and, as such, the UK company represents a small element of the gallery’s annual financial performance.”

Iwan and Manuela Wirth, who co-founded Hauser & Wirth, also own Artfarm Group, whose businesses include the Fife Arms hotel in Scotland, a restaurant in New York and the Groucho private members’ club in London.

Artfarm Group’s accounts, published at the same time, showed that its pre-tax loss worsened from £11.8mn in 2023 to £17.9mn in 2024, even as turnover rose 16 per cent. The company said it was in a period of “growth and capital investment”, including launching restaurants and bars around the world.

The Groucho’s licence was temporarily suspended and the club closed for a period in 2024 after the police raised concerns that the venue had breached licensing conditions and had been the scene of a serious crime. There has been no suggestion that Groucho’s employees or members were involved in the suspected offence.

News from across the art market has been bad as a post-pandemic burst of activity ran out of steam, leading to a drop in auction house sales and forcing some commercial galleries to close international branches or shut entirely.

The global market for fine art is suffering from falling demand from high-spending Asian bidders and US turmoil. Sales fell by 12 per cent to $57.5bn in 2024, according to a report by Art Basel and UBS, with a 39 per cent decline in auction lots fetching more than $10mn.

Last month, auction house Sotheby’s, which has been making redundancies since 2020, said annual pre-tax loss more than doubled to $248mn in 2024. Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ agreed in August last year to take a stake in Sotheby’s as part of a $1bn capital injection.

Pace Gallery, which represents Lee Ufan and James Turrell, announced last week that it was closing its Hong Kong space, while Almine Rech has liquidated its London branch.

Iwan and Manuela Wirth left the UK for Switzerland at the start of June this year, joining the list of wealthy residents who have chosen to leave the country, many prompted by tax changes last year.