Thank you, Mark, for being here. We've got to know each other over the last couple of years, and it's amazing to see how much things have grown for you and your team since we first met. Uniquely, Mark has a background in timber and real estate and was highly successful there. We could probably spend the whole interview just talking about that if we wanted to. But now he's focused on a much more unique area. He's investing in, and he has an operating business in the fine art area. So the name of his business is Treasure Investments. He's in over 75 galleries and 100 cruise ships. He's the number one seller of fine art molds globally. He also is one of the few people that have sold over a billion dollars worth of art. He was just the hit of the show at Art Basel this week. Got a lot of attention across 200 different news outlets there as well. And if you haven't been in there yet, make sure during lunch or cocktails, you go into the exhibit hall. They have just a few feet away so you can actually see the tangible work that him and his team do. I think a lot of us do things that are pretty intangible. It's in spreadsheets unless you go and visit the real estate asset. You can't really bring it with you to a conference It's pretty unique. You can go see Mark's team's work And I had the pleasure of going into right outside Vancouver, Washington and actually taking a tour of his private art collection Which was pretty amazing. So welcome Mark and I appreciate you being here. 

No, it's an honor to be here and thank you so much and yeah, I've been in the art business for 38 years and built a a lot of great companies on the commercial side, and been through a lot of trials and tribulations and learned a lot of lessons, but we've built the business and done a great deal of projects with galleries. We have actually over a hundred different gallery partners across America, the best galleries in the world, and we're on all the cruise ships. If you're on a cruise ship and you see a sculpture, that's our sculpture, but it's been amazing. I've been, as an artist and a designer myself, I'm very passionate about the arts and have had great success in the real estate business, unconventionally, but my heart's always been drawn to the art world and we've built a phenomenal commercial business model. It's the largest mold collection in the world, from eagles and flags to nudes and roommates from little pieces to the biggest statues in front of casinos and hotels. But what's the transition from that to a quantum level is the new collection from the Vatican and other museums in Europe to be able to cast those in precious Mentals is really the quantum leap that took us to the next level and it's just been a phenomenal thing and we're going to just it's exciting to share it with you so we do have a spectacular exhibition of Michelangelo originals in the in the showroom there to share with you and a lot of people might say oh that's a copy or it's a replica these are actually from the plasters made on top of the marbles and they're one of a kind they're truly original Michelangeloes and there's another artists there as well called Apollonius, but we're excited to share that with you. So please come in and talk to our team and we can answer any questions. And these pieces are really there to help inspire you. So we're excited. I think we're going to play a fun little video clip at the museum. Let's roll that video just to provide a little two minute intro as well.

Today, we are casting Michelangelo's David. The actual David is an original posthumous original one of one in pure silver. I don't know how it gets any better than that. The mold's taken off of the Marble Masterpiece in Florence. We're using those to create this piece, which means it's never been done before. Marinelli Sr., the grandfather of Fernando, was given permission and pulled a plaster directly off of that Marble Masterpiece in 1928. It is from that mold that our piece is being derived from.

Mark asked me if I would represent treasure investments and fly to Florence to meet with Ferdinando Maranello and we came away with this international partnership.

The most recognizable art piece in history. Everybody's seen the David, whether Somebody put a mohawk on him or an eyepatch. You know what it is. You've seen it. - 70 plus thousand ounces of radiant energy by one of the greatest hands of artistry in the history of mankind. That changes people's lives. That's what we're doing.

(upbeat music)

Silver radiates energy. It just blows your mind. You can go to silver people, drop for their knees and they just start crying.... If you ask yourself, who's the most famous artist in the world in all of human history? Michael Angelo is at the very top, probably the most important art piece of history in Pure Silver.

Awesome. Let's give him a round of applause.

So part of coming to Family Office Club is learning on multiple levels what to do and how to emulate successful founders. I mean, just the way that a short video like that was put together, every single person in this room should have a video with music that's just as exciting, showing the true passion, explaining what you do, making it visual, making it real. Almost nobody has that. Almost no one has a one -liner, a one -pager, short video. As simple as that is, it costs very little to do that compared to flying here and staying at the Ritz, etcetera, but almost no one has it. So first of all, nice job on doing that. Second of all, we talk about strategic choke points a lot in our investor club and having such great distribution for your art, having the only rights in the world to pour a pure silver, you know, David statue, etc. Those are strategic choke points and distribution points that give you a huge edge. So congrats on all of that. Two key factors that seem to be predictive of having success besides choke points. One is timing, which we know is right, 'cause over 95 % of asset managers are recommending some allocation to ART as part of a portfolio. But also perseverance and grit and persistence. Can you tell us what you've had to do to go from when you started in ART over 30 years ago to now to make this a reality?

- Yeah, we've overcome a lot of obstacles. First, we had to test the market, identify if it was successful or not. And then if it didn't, and it wasn't successful, we had to immediately change our approach. You know, you have to, we've heard a 10,000, you can't do it, you can't get the rights, you can't build these pieces, they're too big, they're too large, it's too much silver. You'll never get the rights, and you'll never be able to authenticate them as genuine. And that's not just the case with the Renaissance, it's with the commercial side. You'll never get into Park West, you'll never get into that gallery, they're too, it's all the I can't do, We did it and it was perseverance. It's continuing to push forward, change your, if something's not working, you have to change your approach immediately. I mean, I mean quickly and you have to identify whether it's actually gonna work or not. You can't just continue to get notes and maybe there's not a real end to that. You have to be able to identify if it's going to work ultimately. And we got through those challenges but it's been a, you know, to get to the top of mind ever since it takes 144 people to get there. I haven't a phenomenal team, But we did the impossible by getting done what we got with those licenses for sure. 

- Awesome, great. Anyone that wants to dig into that a little bit deeper, you can go to billionaires.com and see the interview and he talks a little bit about some of those points a bit more. You've just released some of your first pieces related to Michelangelo, like the most famous sculpture that's ever lived arguably. And you were at Art Basel, so you announced a major deal, maybe one of the industry's largest while you were there. Can you talk to that for a minute? 

We unveiled a collection of pieces. We've been doing these really in secrecy for the last three years. We went to Italy, got the license from a famous foundry to do these. We built the first Piatto Doccia and had the irony of unveiling it with Steve Forbes in Las Vegas to Piatto Doccia. But we really didn't tell the world. It was just kind of done in quiet. We really brought it to the attention of the Art Basel world. We were invited to come down. We opened the ceremony at the Sagamore Hotel, which is where Art Basel started, and had opera singer with the mayor of Miami, and then had an archbishop kind of do a little blessing over the collection. But what's amazing about what really rung true is that this artwork is not Damien Hirst's project, not to knock Damien Hirst, but it's, that's a, you know, there's, around the corner, there's a box of heads in a glass box with maggots. That's not inspirational. That's de -inspirational. Our artwork is inspirational. We did it in my passions because it's so beautiful. It's really divine. I mean,... that artwork out of the Vatican or other museums in Europe, we're done by the greatest masters in the history of the art world, and they resonate beauty. They resonate power. You walk up to these artworks and you feel inspired. It makes you feel good. Not doesn't make you feel good. So we're the opposite of that negativism, and it's amazing that people get, they get a hundred million dollars for cow heads and bisected animals, I don't understand that, but I think that the power of the work that we have now was transformational. The people at that show walked up and were in tears. They were so honored because there's a transition from that type of artwork to artwork that makes people feel good. You walk up and we want it to be a sense of joy and inspiration, which is exactly what happened. It was a miracle. And yes, we did consummate the largest single art deal in history. In fact, our partner is here, phenomenal human being, and he wants the same message to be done. We've brought, it's a $2.5 billion art deal, biggest in the history of the art world, that's going to take this to beyond that exponentially. It's just, it's the springboard for the next level of what we're doing. It's exciting. It's been all over the network, and we've actually getting calls from Paramount Pictures and Docuseries. So it really kind of set the tone right overnight success 30 years in the making right so I saw a recent story about a crypto Person who bought a piece of art, which is a banana taped to a wall for thirty million dollars And then he ate it immediately So it's kind of the opposite of what you're doing basically right so What was the secret to you getting such momentum such distribution? I'm sure a lot of other people would like to buy access to these or the fine art molds you have in all these galleries. How'd you pull it off besides just being persistent? Is there like a secret strategy you have? Do you just make decisions really quickly when stuff starts not working or? - Well, that's, you know, listen, to get Park West as one, I said, how am I gonna get Albert Scagliani's attention? This is one example on our commercial side. I walked into a gallery in Las Vegas and I bought 70 paintings. I said, this has gotta get his attention. He just can't get to some of these owners. And that got his attention, I talked to John Block, the president, and then they flew to our museum in our showroom and he said, "I hit the jackpot." They discovered us, but sometimes you have to get their attention in a unique way. Every single deal is a different approach. You have to find a strategy that works and you have to take massive, massive action. The Vatican collection and the works, and these molds, by the way, the artwork that you see, they're right out of the museums from Europe, and that was a really difficult challenge. The thing that we had a hedge is foundries in Europe cannot cast in precious metals. So Richard, if you had the molds to Michelangelo, by the way it's Michelangelo, Michelangelo Fred corrected me on that about 10 times. If you had the molds and you can't make them in silver, well that's an advantage because I know I can. So if you can't, why wouldn't you let me do it? So we had to get through that little problem but we did and then we have an incredible partner in Italy. So it's identifying what could work and what the possibilities are and then just going after with everything you've got in your arsenal. Right. Awesome. Great. Yeah, I know I heard from Robert Cheldini. I got to interview recently that meeting someone in person is 16 times as powerful as trying to sell them via Zoom or via an email. And that's why we're all here in the room is like build real relationships. And so it has to be powerful bringing investors to see the sculptures in person, to see it and have that emotional response is not something people get for a lot of investments that people here in the room work on. But a lot of your current pieces have been valued for 20 million to 200 million dollars. They've had a couple hundred million dollar offers recently in some of the pieces but have you ever considered securitizing those works or like what's kind of like part of the future plans now that you're getting all these you know historical deals done etc. Yeah I mean again different from our commercial side which is really profitable and in retrospect It's very small compared to this, the MFAC, which is Michelangelo's Fine Art Collection. There's a company out there that's really done an amazing job. And I'll have to get credit to Scotland of... Masterworks. They democratized blue chip artwork where you can buy a singular asset and buy pieces of it. They'll go buy a Picasso or a Basquiat or whatever the artwork is. A flat artwork, two -dimensional. And they started out a few years ago. In fact, they call me once a week. I get emails every day. They want to sell me artwork because I'm I guess a minor art buyer's list which I do collect artwork. It's interesting because that's a phenomenal model. It's now it's a multi -billion dollar operation. They've done over 400 offerings and you they simply buy a painting and they offer it and they drop it into a S corporation and they sell shares and it's like it's incredible. When they started that opportunity it was it took a year to sell out now they they sell out within minutes but what's different about MFAC and our opportunity is when when we actually did an offering and we oversubscribed it instantaneously. See, in fact, I'm a client of Dan Pinkerton, an amazing, by the way, yes, he performs like you. He actually does better than what he says he does. And I asked him, I said, Dan, we have an incredible thing here, incredible product. He said, Mark, you're at the right place, at the right time, with the right product. If you structure it right, you'll oversubscribe. And that is exactly what happened by getting advice from people that know exactly what they're doing. But back to Masterworks, an amazing model. They've paved a lane because listen, it's difficult maybe to find a buyer to buy a sculpture for $300 million. But Masterworks has proved you can get a lot of people to buy into the piece of that singular asset. Where this is different in a lot of ways is MFAC, getting ready for our second round of opportunity, our second offering, if you will. When somebody buys, would buy a single share of asset in that entity, they get a piece of all of the artwork, not just the singular artwork that mitigates risk. But what's different in this is, if there's a shareholder is in the Masterworks structure, they only get a piece of that singular asset, mitigating risk.

But what's different in this is if there's a shareholder in the Masterworks structure, they only get a piece of that singular asset. So we feel we've got a better model, but we got to give them credit for paving the way. It's been phenomenal.

Okay, great. I know we're running out of time and people are probably getting hungry, so let's do two more questions. So a lot of the people here, they're either managing their own money, managing their family's money or managing other people's money. What mistakes do you see high net worth individuals make with their investment portfolio allocation, or mistakes that you see family offices make?

That's a good question. Well, I've learned from the best. I've been around a lot of phenomenal people like yourself that are highly successful, so I've been blessed to learn from others. But I think that the biggest mistake they make is not doing their due diligence and really vetting the people that they're associating with. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors out there, and it's just really important to do your homework.

What I see is that you meet somebody that's extremely wealthy, you think that everything they touch turns to gold. They can be extremely successful in one thing, but maybe not be an expert in the investment allocation in another. Just because they have money doesn't mean they have the expertise in different areas. And it's really important to identify whether they truly are an expert in that area, or they're just really successful in something else. I see people just follow blindly because that person has money, and they think that they can't do anything wrong, and that's a big mistake that people make.

Yeah, it's a good point. Someone could be good at building a widget company but bad at investing the profits. So last question here. What advice would you give your 25-year-old self, knowing what you know now?

Oh, wow. Great question. I would say don't give up. Persist. If you have a dream, go after it. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be really, really hard, but the reward is worth it. Don't give up.

Awesome. Well, let's give Mark a round of applause for being here. Thank you!