Michael Plummer, an art expert hired by the institute and the city to evaluate the collection and ways to raise cash from it, released a report yesterday saying that the Detroit Institute of Arts collection may be worth as much as $4.6 billion, but a sale of art works would raise less than $2 billion to pay the bankrupt city's creditors, Reuters reported yesterday. Plummer concluded that litigation and market conditions would depress prices, and that liquidating the most valuable works would eventually force the museum to close. "Rather than being a source of cash to creditors or a burden on the current city, in fact, the DIA is the single most important cultural asset the city currently owns for rebuilding the vitality of the city," Plummer reported. Some of Detroit's hold-out creditors have been pushing the city to sell or monetize art works to increase settlement payments in the city's plan to adjust $18 billion of debt and exit the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
