Sotheby's

What does Sotheby's own?
Sotheby's owns its auction house operations worldwide, Sotheby's Financial Services, Sotheby's Institute of Art, and interests including RM Sotheby's collector car auctions. Sotheby's International Realty is a licensed brand owned by Anywhere Real Estate.

Is Sotheby's publicly traded?
No. Sotheby's traded on the NYSE as BID from 1988 to October 2019, when Patrick Drahi's BidFair took it private for $3.7 billion. It has no public ticker today.

Who founded Sotheby's?
Samuel Baker, a London bookseller, held the firm's first auction on March 11, 1744. The Sotheby name came from his nephew John Sotheby, and the company is the oldest auction house in the world.

Where is Sotheby's headquartered?
Sotheby's is headquartered in the Breuer Building at 945 Madison Avenue in New York City, which it purchased from the Whitney Museum and opened as its global headquarters on November 8, 2025.

How many brands does Sotheby's own?
Sotheby's operates one master brand across all categories. Its distinct businesses are Sotheby's Financial Services, Sotheby's Institute of Art, and the licensed Sotheby's International Realty network.

Who owns Sotheby's?
Patrick Drahi, the French-Israeli telecommunications billionaire, is majority owner through his BidFair vehicles. Abu Dhabi sovereign fund ADQ holds a roughly 24 percent minority stake acquired in 2024.

Bookseller Samuel Baker held the first Sotheby's auction in London on March 11, 1744, selling a library of several hundred rare books for a few hundred pounds. The firm passed through generations of the Baker family and their partners, taking the Sotheby name from Baker's nephew John Sotheby. Through the 18th and 19th centuries it specialized in books, manuscripts, and prints, handling the libraries of Napoleon and other famous collections.

The 20th century transformed the firm. Under Peter Wilson's leadership from 1937, Sotheby's moved aggressively into paintings and expanded internationally, opening its first New York office in 1955 and acquiring American auction house Parke-Bernet in 1964. The combination made it the leading seller of Impressionist and modern art through the postwar boom.

American shopping mall magnate A. Alfred Taubman bought control in 1983 and took Sotheby's public on the NYSE in 1988. The listing era included spectacular growth and its darkest chapter: a price-fixing scandal with Christie's that broke in 2000. Both houses were found to have colluded on seller commissions through the 1990s; Taubman served a year in federal prison, and the companies paid hundreds of millions in fines and settlements.

The 2010s brought activist investors, a contested fight with Third Point's Dan Loeb, and finally the 2019 take-private by Drahi at $57 per share. Under private ownership Sotheby's pushed into luxury categories beyond art, added online-only and retail formats, and expanded in the Middle East and Asia. The 2024 market downturn drove a $248 million pre-tax loss and a 2025 rebound: sales rose about 18 percent to $7.1 billion, pre-tax profit returned at $53 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $363 million approached record levels. The company issued $825 million in bonds in April 2026 to refinance debt due in 2027.

Sotheby's history includes the art market's most famous scandal: the 1990s price-fixing conspiracy with Christie's, which ended with a US criminal conviction for chairman Taubman, a guilty plea and fine for the company, and a $512 million civil settlement in 2000. The episode remains the defining case study in auction market regulation.

Recent scrutiny centers on financial structure rather than conduct. Press coverage has tracked the Drahi buyout debt, the 2024 loss, staff reductions, and lender negotiations. The company has also faced periodic lawsuits over restitution claims for Nazi-looted art sold through the house, handled case by case, and criticism of executive pay and workplace culture reported in financial media.