Christie’s was in the limelight on Nov. 9, 2021, as the famed auction house put HUMAN ONE, the first physical artwork by famed NFT artist Beeple, on the auction block. The 7-foot multimedia sculpture, depicting an astronaut walking across sci-fi landscapes, is expected to get $15 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, whereas you can invest in HUMAN ONE and other artworks Christie’s sells, you can’t invest in the auction house itself: Christie’s isn’t publicly traded.

In fact, as of 2019, when a French billionaire acquired Sotheby’s, no major auction house has been public, according to Art World Insights. It also reported that during the two decades that Christie’s was a private company and Sotheby’s wasn’t, Christie’s had more flexibility than its rival. Here’s the backstory.

According to Forbes, Christie’s was a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange from 1973 to 1998, when French businessman François Pinault acquired the company and took it private…. Read the Full Article | https://marketrealist.com/p/is-christies-publicly-traded/