Moving On

Moving On

ENTREPRENEURS by Jean Gruss | Editor/Lee-Collier

Imagine buying a business that relies on the former owner to manage the day-to-day operations. Then, he dies.

Murray Paul Collette quickly got bored when he retired to Naples.

To stay busy, Collette decided to buy a small business with the idea that he would retain the former owner to oversee the day-to-day management while he focused on strategy and systems such as finance.

Scouring the Internet, Collette found just the right business: a moving company that specialized in transportation of fine art called Hoolihan's Moving & Storage. The founder and owner, David Hoolihan, wanted to sell the business but agreed to continue to work for Collette. So the two agreed to a deal and Collette bought the business in November 2005.

One month later, Hoolihan was killed in an all-terrain-vehicle accident.

Suddenly, Collette was forced to run a business built on the unfamiliar networks of art dealers, museums and wealthy individuals. Although Collette appreciated art, he isn't a collector.

"It took a while to figure out David's business," he acknowledges.

Putting on the gloves

In 2004, Collette retired from Ohio-based Oak Technical, a specialty glove manufacturer for the semiconductor industry, and moved to Naples.

"I went and got my real estate license," Collette says. But that was unfulfilling. So a friend recommended he scour Bizbuysell.com, a Web site that links buyers and sellers of small businesses.

Hoolihan's business intrigued him. "I've always liked art," he says. "When I was a kid my mom took me to painting class."

Although he enjoys fine art, it's the business aspect that seems to appeal to him most. "The interesting thing about this business is there isn't a Wal-Mart," Collette says.

What's more, he found he could easily outbid companies such as FedEx on the transportation side. For example, he recently charged $2,800 to move an Egyptian antiquity versus the $4,800 FedEx would have cost the owner. ArtMove charges $130 an hour for two movers, including travel time.

The large moving companies don't specialize in fine art and it's a business mostly dominated by local entrepreneurs. "I wanted to go back to work, but for myself," Collette says. Hoolihan, meanwhile, represented a dozen local artists and he wanted to focus on helping them sell their art. He agreed to keep running the moving business while Collette focused on the company's broader strategy as well as accounting, employee management and marketing.

When Hoolihan died in December 2005, Collette had to learn the moving business fast. Fortunately, he had a good moving crew and the 10-year-old company had well-established credibility with local museums and wealthy individuals.

Still, Collette had to be at every job to make sure the moves went smoothly. He knew one botched job could ruin the firm's reputation. "I made sure I was there," he says.

In the clubby and rarified art world, the best form of advertising is word of mouth. "When we do a job for somebody, invariably we get a referral," Collette says.

He renamed the business ArtMove to better reflect the mission (the old name sounded too much like the casual-restaurant chain by the same name) and designed an elegant Web site.

Frequently, art collectors will ask museum curators for reliable movers and Collette says his work for the Naples Museum of Art and the Naples Philharmonic has proved to be an invaluable resource. "I get a lot of referrals that way," he says.

Diversification

Moving expensive art tends to be a seasonal business, punctuated by the flow of northerners who pack the art galleries in winter. What's more, the residential real estate downturn has translated to fewer jobs from interior designers and owners of second and third homes.

One lucrative area now is receiving and delivering art and displays for high-end retail shops. For example, when the French fashion house Hermes built its store at Waterside Shops in Naples, it sent everything from display cases to cabinets to ArtMove. Collette's team delivered them to the store and a crew of French workers traveled to Naples to build the store's interior. "They didn't want Fred and Eddie moving them," Collette says.

As high-end retailers crowd Naples and fast-growing Bonita Springs to the north, more stores are likely to turn to ArtMove for this kind of specialized delivery. "I see that as having a lot of potential," Collette says.

Part of that strategy involves storing valuable displays for luxury retailers. For example, Collette stores seasonal displays such as Christmas trees for Saks Fifth Avenue. When the holiday season nears, he'll deliver the displays to the store in the same condition in which they were put away. Storage now represents 30% of revenues. ArtMove charges monthly rates ranging from $1.25 to $3 per cubic foot to store art in its climate-controlled warehouse in Naples.

Another extension of the business is representing major artists and moving their works from one gallery to another. For example, Collette now represents contemporary Italian artist Marcello Mondazzi. ArtMove stores his art in a climate-controlled warehouse, shuttles it from one gallery to the next and takes a cut of the sales.

The diversification has paid off, Collette says. Although he declines to discuss the company's finances, he says in 2006 ArtMove exceeded Hoolihan's best year. "It's done what I wanted it to do," Collette says.

REVIEW SUMMARY

Business. Specialty movers

Company. ArtMove LLC

Key. Master the basics quickly when forced to take over. It helps to love the work.

Show me

the Monet

Murray Paul Collette gets visibly anxious when asked about a recent job transporting an original Claude Monet painting.

"I can't talk about it," he says. Thieves read publications, too.

When pressed, he says his crew loaded the French Impressionist's painting onto his moving company's truck and held it tightly with straps tied to the truck walls. His company, ArtMove, was transporting the six-by-five-foot painting for a Naples client.

Is he nervous when he's driving such precious cargo?

"I don't worry about two-dimensional stuff," he says with a shrug.

Although he won't discuss the logistics of the Monet move, the trucks sometimes travel with security escorts in unmarked cars ahead and behind.

"I do worry about glass," he acknowledges. He recently moved a glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly valued at $450,000.

Fortunately, glass sculptors make their own packing crates. What's more, Collette generally doesn't have to worry about insurance because the owners' policy typically covers transportation.

Collette has moved all kinds of art, from a marble fireplace from France that took eight hours to crate to Egyptian antiquities that are thousands of years old.

In the end, you have to love art to move it well. "The most important thing is to respect the art," Collette says.

-Jean Gruss