More Sotheby's Losses

Just a short post, Bloomberg's is reporting that Sotheby's has announced the loss of an additional $10.6 million due to lot guarantees from the recent contemporary art sales. This is in addition to the previous announcement of $42 million in guarantee losses from previous sales. Due to those guarantees, Sotheby's reported a third quarter overall loss of $46.2 million. Chrisites, although a private corporation which does not have to publicly report it finances, is reported to have suffered losses as well. Both Sotheby's and Christie' have reported they will greatly curtail or eliminate lot guarantees for future sales. Many of the guarantees were negotiated prior to the worldwide economic sufferings.

The new $10.6 million losses will be reported on Sotheby's 4th quarter financials. By starting out with $10.6 million is losses from guarantees, then factor in poor sales results, high buy-in rates, and the state of the economy, I would think Sotheby's 4th quarter results will suffer as well.

To read the Bloomberg article, click HERE.

To read the AW Blog post about Sotheby's 3rd quarter loss, click HERE.