Christie's International plc

Who owns Christie's?

Groupe Artemis S.A., the private holding company of the Pinault family, has wholly owned Christie's since 1998. The family also controls Kering and the Pinault Collection museums.

Is Christie's a public company?

No. Christie's International plc is privately held by Groupe Artemis and does not trade on any stock exchange. It reports sales totals rather than full financial statements.

What were Christie's 2025 sales?

Christie's reported $6.2 billion in global sales for 2025, up 6 percent, split between $4.7 billion in auctions and $1.5 billion in private sales.

Who is the CEO of Christie's?

Bonnie Brennan became CEO on February 1, 2025. She joined Christie's in 2012 and previously led the Americas region, which generates about half of auction sales.

Where is Christie's headquartered?

Christie's is headquartered at 8 King Street in St. James's, London, England, its home since 1823, with major salerooms in New York, Paris, and Hong Kong.

What does Christie's sell?

Christie's auctions fine art, jewelry, watches, wine, handbags, design, photographs, books, collector cars through Gooding Christie's, and other luxury categories, plus private sales and art services.

James Christie founded the business in London in 1766, holding his first recorded sale on December 5 of that year at rooms on Pall Mall. His salon became a gathering place for Georgian collectors, and he negotiated landmark sales including Sir Robert Walpole's collection to Catherine the Great in 1778.

The company moved to its permanent home at 8 King Street, St. James's, in 1823. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it expanded into a global network, opening offices across Europe and the Americas and later Hong Kong, Dubai, and Shanghai.

The company's most difficult era was the 1990s commission-fixing scandal. Christie's and Sotheby's colluded on seller fees between 1993 and 1999. Christie's cooperated with US investigators and received conditional amnesty; Sotheby's executives were convicted. The houses jointly paid a $512 million civil settlement in 2000.

Francois Pinault's Groupe Artemis acquired Christie's in 1998, first buying a 29.1 percent stake and then the remainder at a total valuation of about $1.2 billion. Under Artemis, the house expanded categories and geographies and set auction records including the $450 million Salvator Mundi in 2017, the $832 million Rockefeller collection in 2018, the $69 million Beeple NFT sale in 2021, and the $1.6 billion Paul Allen collection in 2022. Total sales peaked at $8.4 billion in 2022.

After two weaker market years, sales recovered in 2025 to $6.2 billion, with second-half sales up 26 percent. Guillaume Cerutti, CEO for eight years, moved to oversee the Pinault family's art activities at Artemis, and Bonnie Brennan became CEO on February 1, 2025. The 2024 acquisition of Gooding and Company, now Gooding Christie's, added collector cars as a new category.

Christie's committed in 2021 to net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2030 and participates in the Gallery Climate Coalition on art industry decarbonization. Efforts cover shipping consolidation, reduced print, and sustainable building operations.

The 1990s price-fixing scandal is the company's defining controversy, resolved through cooperation with prosecutors and a $512 million joint settlement in 2000. The company also manages ongoing restitution work on Nazi-era looted art through a dedicated department, periodically withdrawing or settling works with provenance disputes.