Sotheby’s Undergoes a Major Shakeup as More Top Executives Leave Under New Owner Patrick Drahi

by admin

Dec 4, 2019

artnet

Less than six months after telecom magnate Patrick Drahi
took Sotheby’s auction
house private in a deal worth roughly $3.7 billion, the new
owner is wasting no time making major changes at the top of the
auction house.

On the eve of the VIP opening of this year’s Art Basel Miami
Beach fair, chatter about a new round of departures—a mix of
firings and voluntary moves under a severance agreement as part of
the merger—abounded at last night’s cocktail parties and openings.
One source told Artnet News that morale among Sotheby’s staffers is
low amid widespread uncertainty about Drahi’s plans for the
275-year-old auction house.

After Drahi replaced Sotheby’s CEO Tad Smith
and CFO Mike Goss with
executives from his own cable company Altice, a new wave of
longtime executives—reportedly between six and 12 people—are
following them out the door. Among the most notable names is August
Uribe, a seasoned Impressionist art expert who joined Sotheby’s in
1991, and was most recently head of the department and vice
chairman of the fine arts division in New York. Uribe is one of the
longest-serving and best-known specialists at Sotheby’s. He briefly
left for Phillips auction house in 2015, but returned to Sotheby’s
in 2017.

Some of the departures are involuntary dismissals; others are
part of a voluntary (and generous) severance program that was put
in place as part of the June merger agreement for a number of
employees who reported to former CEO Tad Smith, according to a
proxy agreement filed in August.

Changes are happening fast, and this round is likely to be just
the beginning as new leadership continues its analysis of the
company. Sotheby’s new CEO Charles Stewart penned a lengthy
pre-Thanksgiving email to staffers recently in which he provided
details about getting up to speed on the business in his first
month on the job.

“My first month was really 30 days of ‘day one experiences’
focused on meeting as many people as possible, learning and
listening about our company,” he wrote in the email seen by Artnet
News. Stewart estimated that he has met about one third of all
1,700 Sotheby’s employees, adding: “Don’t be surprised if you see
me wandering around your area as I try to get out of my office as
much as possible!”

Stewart pointed to areas beyond the fine art and the auction
business as areas for potential growth, including private sales,
Sotheby’s financial services, wine, “everything related to our
digital efforts,” and “everything in Asia.”

He also praised the work ethic and expertise of Sotheby’s staff
before zeroing in on some of the company’s biggest challenges and
opportunities. The house has yet to capitalize on its data, which
he described as “by far our most undervalued and underutilized
asset.” And, he said, the company remains far too siloed.

“We are a single enormously powerful brand and yet we function
as if we are hundreds of small businesses,” he wrote. “This will be
urgently addressed. We need to come together as ‘One
Sotheby’s.’”

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