Formerly the head of RBC Wealth Management’s art services, Luke Dugdale co-founded Cadell + Co (named after the Scottish Colourist) and oversees its advisory and strategic services. His vision was to help companies establish robust art policy and procedures to apply ‘the highest levels of professional standards to transactions in a sector that is unregulated, highly conflicted and usually outside the “comfort zone” of most fiduciaries’.
‘It is the first art advisory firm to be FCA-regulated, bringing professionalism and transparency to art transactions, art loans and introducing art portfolio management,’ says Dugdale. It is a response to a world where professional fiduciaries are beginning to realise that they have to start treating art with the same responsibility as other assets.
Cadell + Co now has 30 trust companies on its books and is expanding into Singapore. Besides the five partners, they have 60 independent experts on call across the world, many of whom are former department heads at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
Dugdale collects 1950s and 1960s watches and antique pens, and has a penchant for Allaine watches. If he had to choose a favourite artist it would be Alfred Munning; ‘not the kitsch stuff, but the horse racing paintings’.