Dan Loeb’s brush with Sotheby’s could be a costly stroke.
Loeb, the activist hedge fund investor who holds a 9.3 percent stake in the posh 270-year-old auction house, wants it to make more money, and he’s calling for the ouster of CEO William Ruprecht, and demanding three board seats as well as changes in its current strategy.
Sotheby’s stock hovered last week just around $41, or 33 percent under its 2007 peak.
Loeb, who oversees $14 billion at New York-based Third Point, launched a no-holds-barred website, valuesothebys.com, to reinforce his criticism.
But Loeb’s campaign may fall flat.
Art aficionado Christopher Tsai, 39, who runs Tsai Capital, a much smaller hedge fund in New York — and owns 40 works, considered one of the world’s largest collections, by the world-famous Ai Weiwei of China — had this advice for Loeb: Get real.
Tsai doesn’t see a lot of value in Sotheby’s stock, regardless of any future window dressing and the recent sell-off.
“This is a cyclical name, and one is paying 18 times 2014 earnings for a company that is producing close to record revenue and healthy earnings,” Tsai told The Post.
“That’s a lot different than paying 18 times for trough earnings. For that reason, despite any change that Loeb may facilitate, [Loeb’s] investment could wind up taking a long time before paying off in a meaningful way.”
Meanwhile, Sotheby’s has countered Loeb’s attack in a 53-slide PowerPoint presentation filed with the SEC.
“I am not going to comment on his [Loeb’s] website,” Sotheby’s spokesman Andrew Gully told The Post.