Sothebys Profits Rise 48percent
Published August 8th, 2007
Sotheby’s, the auction house whose shares have slipped on concerns that hedge funds may buy less art because of investment losses, said profit from continuing operations rose 48 percent, helped by strong London and New York sales including a Mark Rothko painting.
Second-quarter profit increased to $107.3 million, or $1.64 a share, from $72.4 million, or $1.17 a share a year earlier, the world’s second-largest auction house said today from its New York office in a statement distributed by PR Newswire. Five analysts expected Sotheby’s to report profit of $1.47 a share on average from continuing operations, according to Bloomberg data.
U.S. hedge-fund managers Steven Cohen and Kenneth Griffin are among the world’s 10 most active collectors, according to ARTnews magazine. Contemporary art prices, after quadrupling in 11 years, may stall if the $1.7 trillion hedge-fund industry keeps losing money in the credit and equities markets, analysts said.
“Hedge funds have been a relatively powerful component of the rise in interest and prices for the contemporary art category,” analyst George Sutton of Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC in Minneapolis said in an e-mail before the results were announced.
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