Sotheby's Buys 25% Stake in RM

Everything happening in the market at the moment is pointing to either its own maturity OR a complete crash...... Sothebys will provide wonderful support for any future growth that RM will look for. AND Sothebys will make 25%. Win win.

 

Smart move for Sothebys

 

I wonder who Sotheby's used to audit the books and what sort of valuation they came up with?

 

Note that the press release indicates they have an option to increase under certain circumstances . I assume at some point they may take over...well this will be then a different RM, certainly with more financial muscle, to finance and buy and garantee cars, but will be a different place. With Bonhams trying to sell themselves, I think it was in some other thread and in the press too, may be, it is clear auction houses are consolidating. Normal market trend. Still customer will have to be convinced that cars can be handled the same way as other goods, and will not suffer of lower quality of service coming from a large integrated auction house.

 

After all Christies used to have a wonderful car department and were market leaders, thinking back to Monterey 2000 where they turned over some amazing machinery but compared to their art or furniture departments realised the auto section revenue was miniscule but required a large amount of specialist knowledge. So they pulled the plug, a major point is that they provided Gooding, Bonhams and even RM with many of their most experienced staff.........