Nombre de messages : 57505 Date d'inscription : 05/05/2005
Sujet: Actu : Osvaldo Patrizzi hausse le ton. 12/4/2008, 12:51
Patrizzi & Co conteste le fondement des accusations lancées dans un communiqué de presse publié le 8 avril 2008 par Antiquorum SA et dénonce cette manœuvre comme étant une nouvelle tentative d'intimidation envers l'ancienne direction d'Antiquorum SA. La suite ...
Désolé pour l'article suivant en anglais, mais c'est je crois la source d'information la plus documentée sur l'année écoulée chez Antiquorum, les différents en cours, et la chute inexorable des restes de cette maison face à la montée des maisons d'encheres non spécialisées mais au combien compétentes que sont Christies et Sothebys
International Herald Tribune, 2 Avril 2008
Citation :
Is time running out at Antiquorum?
PARIS: Not long ago, Osvaldo Patrizzi, founder and former chairman of the specialist watch auctioneer Antiquorum, was lamenting what he sees as the slow death of the company at the hands of its new Japanese owners.
On Tuesday, he plans to put that behind him by announcing a new venture in direct competition with the old.
Patrizzi will present his vision of a 21st century sale room, Patrizzi & Co. Auctioneers, at a news conference at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, in Geneva. At his side will be old friends and allies, including Mark Schumacher, former chief operating officer of Antiquorum; Leo Verhoeven, an executive at Habsburg Holdings, a minority shareholder in Antiquorum; and Philip Poniz, a former Antiquorum watch expert.
Patrizzi & Co.'s first sale is scheduled for the autumn, in Geneva. In time, it plans to open salesrooms in New York and Hong Kong, and offices in Milan, Shanghai and London.
Patrizzi & Co. intends to revolutionize the world of collector watch auctions by combining certain features of online bidding with those of classic sales. Its most unusual feature, Patrizzi said in a telephone interview last month, will be that it will charge no buyer's premium - customarily set at 20 percent to 25 percent above the hammer price. Giving up the premium would increase the buying power of bidders, he said.
In an e-mail message, Schumacher - who will replicate his former Antiquorum role as chief operating officer of the new venture - said Patrizzi & Co. would make extensive use of electronic technology and offer other substantial advantages to both buyers and sellers. He declined to make more details public before the announcement on Tuesday.
In one fell swoop, Patrizzi, 62, one of the world's leading horological experts, will draw a line across his life at Antiquorum.
By his reputation, expertise and sheer force of personality, Patrizzi built Antiquorum into a multinational operation which, over a 34-year span, became a leader among watch auctioneers, posting sales results that surpassed year after year those of competing departments at Christie's and Sotheby's.
The turning point came in 2006. Harboring ambitions of taking the company public, Patrizzi sold 50 percent of Antiquorum to Artist House Holdings, a publishing company in Tokyo, for about $30 million.
Patrizzi agreed to stay on as chief executive through 2008. "We needed some time to bring the company's financials in line with the stringent requirements of public markets, both in Switzerland and in the U.S.," he said.
But the corporate marriage between Patrizzi and Artist House soon proved unworkable. Once under the same roof, the new Japanese managers were not happy with the way Patrizzi kept house. Last August, Artist House ousted him and appointed Yo Tsukahara, a director of Artist House, in his place.
Starting in October, legal proceedings and counterproceedings were filed in various jurisdictions, and they remain unresolved today. Antiquorum and Artist House accused Patrizzi of misappropriating corporate funds and removing valuable watches from the company safe. "The total amount we are seeking against Mr. Patrizzi is in the order of $40 million," said David Smith, Antiquorum's chief financial officer, on March 14. Patrizzi, who claims his ouster was illegal under Swiss law, seeks more than $3 million that he says is still unpaid from the sale of his shares, and back pay from the company.
Each side has its own version of what went wrong.
Smith, who was hired last autumn, said: "We took over the company from an Italian entrepreneur. You would expect to find a mess. We had to bring in a forensic team to sort out that mess." Forensic audits revealed "a general lack of good administration, false invoices and missing watches," he said.
Patrizzi said that all the company books were made available to Artist House, and that everything was in order. "We performed four audits annually. We had even designated a special person to liaise with the Japanese, with instructions to be available around the clock, despite the time difference. Of course, to justify their hold-up of the company, they had to say I was dishonest."
For Patrizzi, Antiquorum was taken over by people who did not understand the business. "They thought running an auction house was like operating a screw-making company," he said. "If you fire the top manager, the machine continues to make screws. An auction house does not work that way."
By February, substantial shortcomings in receivables and inventory required a recapitalization of Antiquorum. "Artist House added between $5 million to $10 million in new capital, following which we issued 2,100 shares," Smith said. Of those, Patrizzi and Habsburg Holdings each hold one share.
In a year of corporate upheaval and legal entanglements Antiquorum's sale figures fell, according to company insiders. While the company's Web site says that global sales last year rose to $90 million from $84 million in 2006, officials said that mainly reflected the slide of the dollar. "As a private company, we are not required to publish results. The Web site results are merely indicative," Smith said. "They are also partially inflated due to currency fluctuations."
Excluding currency factors, sales fell in the latter part of 2007 due to a combination of client attrition, lower quality merchandise, the distractions of legal proceedings and audits, and the cancellation of its autumn sale in Hong Kong.
Brandon Thomas, a former senior horological expert and principal auctioneer who joined Antiquorum in 2003, said the company performed satisfactorily last year, considering the circumstances.
"Our figures were down 10 to 15 percent. If you add the canceled Hong Kong sale, they look more dramatic. We did not have too many high-priced items. After this period of adjustment, some clients are coming back," he said.
But in mid-March, Thomas submitted his own resignation and was asked to leave immediately, without completing his required two-month notice period. His name was promptly removed from the company's Web site.
Karin Tasso, marketing and communication director for Antiquorum, and a 20-year veteran of the company, also resigned in March. "I always thought I had the best job in the world. But the situation here is too stressful now," Tasso said on March 28. "I will be gone in the first week of April."
While Antiquorum strugged, its competitors jumped at the opportunity to increase their share in a dynamic market.
"At the fall sales in Hong Kong last year, with Antiquorum's auction canceled, Sotheby's realized a higher result than Christie's with half the number of lots but more valuable pieces," said Alex Barter, deputy worldwide head of Sotheby's watch department in London. With $34.5 million, Sotheby's watch department realized its second best year ever in 2007.
Christie's did even better. The watch department reported a record $87 million in sales, up from $53.5 million in 2006. "The best lots last year were sold through Christie's. We have remained faithful to our formula of stability and strong personal relationships with our clients," said Aurel Bacs, international co-head of Christie's watch department in Geneva. "Also, we had no internal turmoil."
For Antiquorum's Japanese owners, the picture is bleak. Artist House has written down the value of its shareholding, and its own share price has dropped 90 percent in yen terms in one year on the Tokyo Mothers start-up market, according to Bloomberg.
Antiquorum's first spring season sale held on March 16 in Geneva yielded lackluster results: $9.6 million for 806 lots. A "good" result according to the noticeably subdued tone of the company's press release. "Nothing to be proud of," according to Patrizzi.
This month, Antiquorum will face another test when it plans to conduct its first thematic, single-brand sale without Patrizzi, who invented the concept. The April 17 sale in New York, entitled "Revolution: The Evolution of The Rolex Sport Watch," will mark the 100th anniversary of Rolex.
Rolex watches pose a particular challenge to experts because of the company's high production, and the difficulty in assessing whether a piece has been doctored.
"There is always 10 percent uncertainty about any Rolex watch because Rolex does not provide certificates to prove what the watch looked like at birth," Thomas said before his resignation. "Our team in New York has worked on this sale for 10 months, making sure the parts are authentic, the numbers match the right period and the dials are the right ones."
Previews for the Rolex sale are scheduled to be held in Geneva on Monday and Tuesday coinciding with the opening days of the salon and the Patrizzi & Co. start-up announcement.
That announcement will slam shut any window that may remain open for a reconciliation.
According to Patrizzi, Artist House made several overtures to him in early March, looking to put an end to its subsidiary's downward spiral. He said the Japanese owners had indicated to him that Tsukahara was being moved aside and would be replaced at the next shareholders' meeting, on April 22.
Tasso, asked to comment, said on March 28 that Tsukahara "remains CEO today." William Rohr, formerly associated with Timezone.com, a Web site for watch enthusiasts acquired by Antiquorum in January 2007, had been appointed to assist him in his duties, she added. Tsukahara, contacted later, denied any overtures had been made to Patrizzi and confirmed his own continued tenure. He also said Antequorum was "on financially solid grounds" and was raising additional funds.
Smith said Antiquorum could live without Patrizzi. "Mr. Patrizzi was a great man and built a great company. But the company eventually replaces the man," Smith said. "The graveyards are full of indispensable people."
But on April 1, Isabelle Boupantin, a business coordinator in the client relations department, said Smith, too, was no longer with the company. Tsukahara, responding to a request for clarification of Smith's position, declined comment.
En ce qui me concerne, je souhaite à William bonne chance pour ses nouvelles fonctions.
Décidément, tu es une perle François-Xavier.
Juste maintenant, en te lisant, je suce mon pouce (virtuellement) en pensant aux Bisounours.
Å
on fouette souhaite tous en choeur un plein succès au nouveau CEO.
Cela n'a rien à voir avec les bisounours : j'ai revu William au dîner Lange, cela m'a fait plaisir, je lui souhaite bonne chance pour ses nouvelles fonctions. Voilà, cela ne va pas plus loin.