Layoffs Loom at Sotheby’s UK Offices

Top auction house Sotheby’s is set to lay off some fifty employees at its London offices, with cuts likely at other locations in Europe and New York, where Sotheby’s only last yearpurchasedthe iconic onetime home of the Whitney Museum of American Art as its headquarters. According to theArt Newspaper, which first broke the news, London employees were first made aware of the impending layoffs at a staff meeting held last week. Said to be on the chopping block are director-level jobs as well as art-handler roles. The house is currently in a consultation period ahead of the cuts. Addressing the rumor that Sotheby’s plans to sell off its London headquarters, a spokesperson assured theArt Newspaperthat this was not the case.

“London is and will continue to be our largest and most important center for sales, exhibitions and talent in Europe and our second biggest sales location in the world,” said the spokesperson.

The downsizing comes in the wake of two comparatively restrained contemporary and modern art sales weeks that saw the house take in $126.6 million in London in March, and $267.3 million in New York in May. According to Companies House, the government agency that holds the UK’s register of companies, Sotheby’s saw profits for its UK business drop 24 percent between 2021 and 2022, from £34.5 million ($44 million) to £26.2 million ($33.4 million). However, a spokesperson for the auction house told the Art Newspaper that the agency’s information was “incomplete.”

Sotheby’s is owned by French telecom billionaire Patrick Drahi, who took the company private after purchasing it and its extant debt in 2019 for $3.7 billion. He was rumored to be contemplating a public offering in 2021, on the heels of that year’s record sales, but that plan never materialized.