Anyone within driving distance of Williamstown, MA, who has read Lance Esplund’s voluptuous review in the Wall Street Journal of the Clark Art Institute’s Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes From the Prado must be exclaiming, “Road trip!”
I’m on it.
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
What I’ll likely be missing (unless I break my resolve for a blogging hiatus next week, with occasional tweets) is Monday morning’s Sotheby’s conference call with securities analysts. This should be more newsworthy than usual, thanks to the acquisition late last month of more than 7.9 million of Sotheby’s shares by Taikang Life Insurance Co. That Chinese company is now the U.S.-based Sotheby’s top shareholder, with a 13.52% stake, according to the Thomson Reuters ranking that is posted on Sotheby’s website (scroll down).
When I checked that ranking on Monday, I was surprised to see neither Taikang nor Dan Loeb‘s hedge fund, Third Point LLC, on the list of Sotheby’s top institutional investors:
The puzzling omissions have since been addressed. At this writing, these are listed as the current top six:
On Monday, wondering why the presumptive Top Two were AWOL, I fired off these questions to Sotheby’s press office:
1) Why is Dan Loeb’s Third Point no longer listed among Sotheby’s top shareholders?
2) Did Third Point sell (or in some way transfer) its shares to Taikang? If so, why isn’t that yet reflected in an SEC filing, posted on your website?
3) If not from Third Point, where did the bulk of Taikang’s shares come from (i.e., the company’s own buyback shares)?
4) Why is Taikang not listed on your website as among the top shareholders?
On Wednesday, after the listing had been revised, I received this cryptic reply:
We have no comment on the below [my original queries].
I just wanted to make sure you have seen the disclaimer at the bottom of the stock ownership page on our website so you cite it correctly: “Ownership data is provided by Thomson Reuters, a third party service, and Sotheby’s does not maintain or provide information directly to this service.”
I hope all is well and that you are having a good summer.
That’s my plan, Lauren, at least for most of next week. But maybe an analyst on the conference call will ask questions that can help dispel my confusion.
Maybe we’ll also learn more about Taikang’s future intentions, which are hinted at in its SEC filing:
[Taikang has] expressed…support for the Issuer’s [Sotheby’s] broader strategic initiatives and provided suggestions regarding future director nominations for election to the Issuer’s Board of Directors; such nomination could include persons associated with the Reporting Person [Taikang]….
The Reporting Person reserves the right to engage in discussions with management of the Issuer and with third parties that may have an interest in the business affairs of the Issuer in order to monitor their investment and consider alternatives for growth and exploration of commercial opportunities.
In other words, Chen Dongsheng‘s Taikang, like Loeb’s Third Point, is an activist investor that may try to add new members to Sotheby’s board and influence its practices to increase profits.
Chen is no stranger to the art auction business: As reported by Chris Buckley in the NY Times, he helped found China Guardian Auctions Co. and is that firm’s biggest shareholder.
This could turn out to be a case of too many cooks roiling Sotheby’s broth.