Sotheby’s (BID), the world’s largest publicly traded auctioneer of fine arts and collectibles, said second-quarter earnings rose 48 percent for its best quarter ever.
Net income was $127.2 million, or $1.81 a share, up from $86.2 million, or $1.26 a share, a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Second-quarter revenue rose 31 percent to $369.8 million.
“This is the best quarter in Sotheby’s history,” Sotheby’s Chief Executive Officer William Ruprecht said in a statement.
Six analysts polled by Bloomberg forecast profit of $1.57 a share.
The company’s sales were a record $3.4 billion in the first half of 2011. Quarterly operating expenses rose $39.4 million, or 28 percent, primarily because of higher incentive compensation costs and to new hiring and salary increases, the statement said.
“You do better, we pay more,” Ruprecht said in a conference call with investors and analysts. “We have considerable confidence in the robustness of the art market as we see it.”
Sotheby’s shares rose 22 cents to $39.94 today in New York Stock Exchange trading. They’re down 11 percent this year. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is little changed in 2011.
