Both are seeking control of Drouot Holding SA, the company that owns both the Hôtel Drouot and the lucrative auction weekly, the Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot, by offering to buy the individual shares owned by each of Paris’s 110 commissaires-priseurs. Each of the 110 shareholdings is thought to be worth about £300,000.
Bergé, calling on Parisian commissaires-priseurs to “regroup under a French banner” and “offer a united front to their international competitors”, tabled his bid in early December and says it remains open until January 31.
Barclays Private Equity (BPE) appeared in less of a hurry when announcing their own plans for Drouot on January 17, predicting that the acquisition process would take place over the “coming months”.
Chief executive Olivier Millet said BPE’s project “differed radically” from Bergé’s by “seeking to maintain the independence of each commissaire-priseur”. Millet also underlined BPE’s wish to “develop” the Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot as “developing the Gazette means developing the art market”. He told Agence France Presse that commissaires-priseurs had approached BPE because Bergé’s offer was “not very generous”.
Bergé lost no time in reacting to news of BPE’s offer, which he insisted was “a different proposal, not a counter-proposal” whose main target was control of the Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot. Bergé said he would be happy to consider a joint bid for Drouot with BPE.
Drouot president Dominique Ribeyre told the Antiques Trade Gazette that Drouot would be “studying BPE’s proposals” but that Bergé’s offer “remains the most serious one for the time being” and that further offers to acquire Drouot could not be ruled out.
Two takeover bids launched for the Drouot
FRANCE: Just weeks after Sotheby’s and Christie’s first sales in Paris, the Hôtel Drouot is the target of two takeover bids, from Barclays Private Equity, an investment fund, and Pierre Bergé, longtime president of the Yves St-Laurent fashion house and a former chairman of the Paris Opera.
