Peace has broken out in the bitter proxy battle hedge-fund activist Dan Loeb has been waging against auction house Sotheby’s.
Sotheby’s and Loeb’s Third Point reached an agreement Monday that will give the 52-year-old investor three seats on an expanded Sotheby’s board.
Loeb, who had ripped the management acumen of the Sotheby’s Chairman and CEO William F. Ruprecht, had promised to wage a “holy jihad” against the board and unseat three of the current board members.
Loeb unsuccessfully sought to have a Delaware court halt Tuesday’s annual meeting of Sotheby’s shareholders because, he claimed, its poison-pill rights plan was biased against him.
The plan limited activist investors to buying 10 percent of Sotheby’s shares. Third Point owns about 9.6 percent of the company’s shares.
Under the deal, Sotheby’s will terminate the poison pill. Third Point withdrew its lawsuit against the plan and can raise its stake to 15 percent, Sotheby’s said in a statement.
Gaining a seat on the Sotheby’s board will be Loeb, Olivier Reza and Harry Wilson.
The annual meeting will begin, as scheduled, on Tuesday, but then immediately will adjourn until later in May to allow for updated proxy information to be distributed.
Ruprecht, who had told his board in the middle of the fight with the hedge-fund mogul that “Loeb wants to control our board,” and that “our staff would hate that . . . he‘s a scumbag,” sounded a tad more diplomatic in a statement Monday morning.
“We welcome our newest directors to the board and look forward to working with them, confident that we share the common goal of delivering the greatest value to Sotheby’s clients and shareholders,” Ruprecht said. “This agreement ensures that our focus is on the business and that we will benefit from five fresh voices and viewpoints.”
Sotheby’s shares gained 3.25 percent Monday to close at $44.80. They are down about 15 percent this year.