Russian-owned London based auction house to donate proceed of sales to Ukrainian red cross
Phillips has raised £5.8 million ($7.7 million) for the Ukrainian Red Cross Society after announcing this morning, March 3, that it will give the whole net proceeds of its 20th-century and contemporary art evening auction in London to the charity.
The auction house anticipated that the sale’s 41 pieces would bring in a total of £24.5 million to £35.4 million ($32.5 million to $47 million) prior to the event. Four lots were withdrawn from the lineup immediately before the sale began, and one more work was removed after the sale had begun.
“They did not elicit the interest we anticipated, and we decided to withdraw the lots accordingly,” a Phillips representative said.
“The Ukrainian Red Cross Society is doing incredible work to support and protect people in the region, and it is our hope that the buyer’s premium and vendor’s commission from tonight’s evening sale will help this extraordinary charity as they continue their lifesaving work,” Stephen Brooks, Phillips’s CEO, said in a statement this morning.
Buyers’ premiums, which are calculated on a sliding scale, can range from 14.5 to 26 percent of a lot’s hammer price; sellers’ fees (or vendors’ commissions), on the other hand, vary from lot to lot and are frequently based on related expenses such as insurance, transportation, restoration, and catalog photography. For major clients or trophy lots, sellers’ costs are frequently waived.
JOBLUX was told that Phillips guaranteed at least one seller 50% of the buyer’s premium in order to secure their consignment, implying that not all of the fees were going to the auction house in the first place. (The $7.7 million figure also reveals how much money Phillips would have made from the sale, highlighting the razor-thin margins on which many auction houses operate.)
Phillips, which has been owned by the Mercury Group, a Moscow-based luxury retail firm founded by Leonid Fridlyand and Leonid Strunin, since 2008, has decided to contribute the earnings to the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, despite demands from some collectors to boycott the brand.
“The owners of Phillips are not the subject of sanctions and have no affiliations to any individuals or institutions that may be listed directly or indirectly in any sanctions list,” a representative for the auction house declared earlier this week.
The firm also stated that it does not do business with anyone who has been sanctioned.
Phillips issued a statement on their Instagram account on Sunday condemning Russia’s actions. The post quoted Brooks as saying, “We at Phillips absolutely condemn the invasion of Ukraine.”
“The awful events occurring in the region have startled and saddened us, as have the rest of the art world.” In the strongest possible terms, we demand an immediate end to all hostilities.”
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