Meditation or not, Dan Loeb’s killer instinct seems intact.
The hedge-fund hotshot, who just last week was on a panel with the Dalai Lama touting spirituality in business, indicated in a regulatory filing Thursday he’s ready to go to war with Sotheby’s.
Loeb said he’s launching a proxy battle to nominate himself and two allies to the board of the auction house.
Sotheby’s has been in Loeb’s sights since mid-August, when he joined two other activists — Marcato Capital’s Mick McGuire and Trian Partners’ Nelson Peltz — bid to shake up Sotheby’s.
Peltz has since sold out.
Loeb, now Sotheby’s No. 1 shareholder with a 9.53 percent stake, may be looking to recreate the success he had with Yahoo!, where he also took three board seats and quickly walked away with a $500 million profit.
The market shrugged off Loeb’s move on Sotheby’s, with shares in the New York company falling 0.3 percent to $50.37.
The auction house fired back at Loeb, saying the Third Point hedge fund owner had rebuffed its offer to put him on their board and that it had met with him six times since August.
“The company is doing what they can do,” said one investor, noting Sotheby’s is also weighing a move to sell a portion of its prestigious real estate holdings.
The overtures weren’t enough. “Sotheby’s has made some improvements since our filing,” Loeb said in a regulatory filing, adding that its “focus on returning capital to shareholders was long delayed but welcome.”
Loeb previously called on Sotheby’s CEO William Ruprecht to step down, but Thursday said he was willing to work with him.