E-Photo
Issue #17  7/1/2000
 
SOTHEBY'S POSTPONES ANNUAL SHAREHOLDERS' MEETING, ANNOUNCES BOARD NOMINEES

By Alex Novak

The Board of Sotheby's Holdings has recommended 16 nominees to serve as directors of the company for the coming year and announced a rescheduled annual shareholders meeting in New York City, August 3rd.

The firm's annual shareholders' meeting and election of new board members originally scheduled for London in April was cancelled abruptly amidst reports that it's biggest shareholder, Baron Capital Group Inc. was unhappy with its lack of representation on the board.

If that's the case, they may continue to be unhappy.

The four nominees to be voted on by the Class A shareholders includes two telco execs and two investment bankers, but no one from Baron, which controls the Class A shares.

Former Sotheby's Chairman A. Alfred Taubman owns the bulk of the B Shares. Among the 12 nominees to be voted on by the Class B shareholders is a very familiar name: Robert Taubman, the son of the former chairman and rumored to be his choice for chairman at some point.

Although Baron owns over 55% of the Class A stock, Taubman has 63% voting control of the company through his ownership of Class B shares.

It should be worth buying one share in Sotheby's just to attend the shareholders' meeting. At $17.50 (the closing price June 30), it might be the most entertainment you'll find for that amount in New York City.

Novak has over 47 years experience in the photography-collecting arena. He is a long-time member and formally board member of the Daguerreian Society, and, when it was still functioning, he was a member of the American Photographic Historical Society (APHS). He organized the 2016 19th-century Photography Show and Conference for the Daguerreian Society. He is also a long-time member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, or AIPAD. Novak has been a member of the board of the nonprofit Photo Review, which publishes both the Photo Review and the Photograph Collector, and is currently on the Photo Review's advisory board. He was a founding member of the Getty Museum Photography Council. He is author of French 19th-Century Master Photographers: Life into Art.

Novak has had photography articles and columns published in several newspapers, the American Photographic Historical Society newsletter, the Photograph Collector and the Daguerreian Society newsletter. He writes and publishes the E-Photo Newsletter, the largest circulation newsletter in the field. Novak is also president and owner of Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, a private photography dealer, which sells by appointment and has sold at exhibit shows, such as AIPAD New York and Miami, Art Chicago, Classic Photography LA, Photo LA, Paris Photo, The 19th-century Photography Show, Art Miami, etc.