Once a publicly-listed company trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the auction house today is privately owned by majority shareholder French-Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi. Under his reign, Sotheby’s overtook Christie’s as the world’s top auction house in 2020 (for the first time since 2011), with over $5 billion in aggregate sales.
Sotheby’s has seen tremendous growth and change since its early days as a posh London bookstore in the 1700s. It started small, auctioning rare and precious literary collectables, followed by prints, medals and coins. But things took off in the early 1900s when it decided to capitalise on fine art to rival its number one competitor, Christie’s.
Not long after, Sotheby’s opened offices in Paris and Los Angeles, and became the first auction house to operate in Hong Kong in 1973 and Moscow in 1988. Today, Sotheby’s operates in 40 countries and spans 70 categories, including classic and modern art, jewellery, watches, wine and spirits, design, collectable cars and real estate.
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