Sotheby’s is taking on the modern art world without Dan Loeb, it appears.
A 34 percent increase in sales of impressionist and contemporary art drove net auction sales in the first quarter, up 40 percent from the prior year, to $730 million, Sotheby’s said Wednesday in a report on its preliminary results.
Sotheby’s said its “record-setting impressionist art sales in London achieved the highest-ever total for any sales series held anywhere in London.”
The results are another jab at Loeb, who is mounting a proxy battle to gain three seats on Sotheby’s board.
Last fall Loeb, who owns 9.6 percent of Sotheby’s shares, used his poison pen to attack management for being like “an old master painting in desperate need of restoration.”
“It is apparent to us from our meeting that you do not fully grasp the central importance of contemporary and modern art to the company’s growth strategy,” Loeb said in an Oct. 2 letter to
Chairman and CEO William Ruprecht.
Loeb sued Sotheby’s over the poison pill it introduced to thwart his efforts to exert control, which will be heard in Delaware Chancery Court on April 29.