Sotheby’s reported a first-quarter loss as auction sales dropped 29 percent from a year earlier.
The New York auctioneer lost $10.7 million, or 16 cents a share, compared with a profit of $2.4 million, or 3 cents a share, a year earlier, it said in a statement. Revenue fell 12 percent to $105 million.
Sotheby’s said expenses rose 5 percent as it spent more to develop its “presence in growth markets.”
The loss per share was in line with estimates of six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Chief Executive Officer William Ruprecht said first-quarter results would have been comparable to a year earlier were it not for an “exceptional” single-owner sale in February 2011 that totaled $132 million.
“As the excellent results of our May auctions make abundantly clear, the first-quarter results are in no way reflective of a slowdown in demand for works of art around the world,” he said in a statement.
