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Rumour is that Steven Cohen, one of the most aggressive hedge-fund traders in the world, wants to buy Sotheby's. He is already a major art collector, and last week increased his stake in the auction house to 5.9%. Next month, he will exhibit 20 of his works at Sotheby's headquarters in Manhattan.
Over the past decade, while amassing a multi-billion-dollar fortune through his firm SAC, Cohen has built a collection including Damien Hirst's shark in a tank and Willem de Kooning's Woman III, for which he paid $137.5 million (£94 million) to entertainment mogul David Geffen. The works are on display at his vast home in Connecticut, where the amenities include an indoor ice-hockey rink.
So he's rich and he's into art. But does that make him a good owner for Sotheby's?
SAC is not only one of the toughest places in the financial universe, but also one of the weirdest. In 2007, a young Chinese trader at the firm filed a sexual harassment suit against his boss, one of Cohen's top lieutenants.
He alleged the boss insisted he take female hormones to make him a less aggressive trader. The trader complied, but then found he wanted to wear women's clothing and couldn't have sex with his wife. He also claimed his boss, a man, made sexual advances to him. Once news of the case leaked, the judge sealed it and the lawsuit went into arbitration and silence.
Sotheby's market cap is around $650 million, about half the value of Cohen's art collection. But before buying, Cohen may care to recall the fate of the last billionaire to take Sotheby's private. Alfred Taubman went to jail in 2002 for conspiring with Christie's to fix art prices.
* Bonus-bashing may be going too far. CNBC host Donnie Deutsch said on TV this week: "If you took a bonus and you got us into this, I want to know who you are, to see when you bring your kids to school, and to look you in the eye and say, 'Give that money back, that's not yours, that's mine'." Can't the children of the AIG rats be spared the sins of their parents?
* Good to see Vikram Pandit belt-tightening. Among the cuts from a renovation of executives' offices is a Zen garden for the Citigroup chief executive...
