All change for the CEOs...
December 3 2014
Picture: TAN
Christie's CEO, Steven Murphy, is leaving, the company has announced. This just days after Sotheby's CEO also announced his departure. Melanie Girlis in The Art Newspaper says it's 'extraordinary'.
Update - a well connected reader tells me all sorts of interesting things about the departure, most of which are alas unprintable. The main question to ask is, why, if everything is so rosy at Christie's after their most successful sale ever (the recent $852m 'mega sale' of contemporary art), is the CEO is suddenly going? Did Christie's actually make much in the way of profit from the sale? And did the deployment of so much in the way of guarantees represent an acceptable level of risk? Of course, as a private company, the figures will never be known. But as Shakespeare said, 'all that glisters is not gold'.
Update II - The new CEO has been announced, Patricia Barbizet, who is CEO of Artemis SA, the holding company owned by Christie's owner, Francois Pinault. More here.
