Thank you, Shawn. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today.

With me here is Bill Ruprecht, Sotheby’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Bill Sheridan, Sotheby’s Chief Financial Officer. I should highlight that during the course of this call, the company may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company.

We wish to caution you that such projections and statements are only predictions and involve risks and uncertainties resulting in the possibility that the actual events or performance will differ materially from such predictions. We refer you to the documents the company files periodically with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the company’s most recently filed Form 10-Q and 10-K.

These documents identify important factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in the projections or forward-looking statements. Now, I will turn the call over to Bill Ruprecht.

Thank you, Jenny. Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for your interest in Sotheby’s.

First quarter is typically a loss quarter for Sotheby’s and of course that’s true for the first quarter of 2013. But as I think about our business and I think you will see these results don’t reveal much as to how we think about the full year ‘13 nor what we expect beyond that.

Total revenues for the quarter were almost $102 million, a 3% decline from the prior year. It’s due to largely to a decrease in – a meaningful decrease in auction commission margin from 18% in the first quarter of 2012 to 15% in the first quarter of 2013.

Net auction sales did increase about 23% in the first quarter when compared to the prior year. Sales growth was almost entirely in the most competitive categories of impressionist modern and contemporary art, where the climate for the high value consignments remains intensely competitive and with these consignments often earning thinnest margins.

In the first quarter, there was a 35% increase in the total sale price of lots sold for over $1 million where the auction commission margins experienced the most pressure. The first quarter is the period of the year and we experienced the highest end mix of business.

In an effort to strengthen our margins, we increased the buyer’s premium earlier this year to 25% in the first 100 grand of hammer price in U.S. terms, 20% of the next $1.9 million of hammer, and 12% on the margin of both of that $2 million amount on each every lot.

That was effective March 15. So, as a result of pricing, it did not have a meaningful impact on our quarter’s results as a significant majority of the auctions for the period were held prior to that date of the 15.

It is expected, however, to contribute to an improvement in our auction commission margins in the second quarter of ‘13 when compared to the first quarter of 2013. We are of course still collecting for the June Impressionist and contemporary sales that book end and end the second quarter.

So, our book of business is not yet finalized, but from where we sit today we are anticipating an improvement in margins in the second quarter of ’13 over the second quarter a year ago. So, one more time an improvement in the quarter is anticipated versus the first quarter and as well for the second quarter when compared to the prior period a year ago.

Loss in the first quarter of this year was $22.3 million and $11.7 million unfavorable comparison to the first quarter a year ago. This is as I said due to the decline in auction commission margins as well as the more modest increase in operating expenses where in large measure those costs are due to the strategic and long-term initiatives that we are pursuing including the development of our presence in growth markets.

I should say it again. Spending is up in the quarter we think responsibly so in terms of what we expect in longer term will award for those investments.

We are moving forward with initiatives which we expect will nourish and grow our franchise for not many quarters, but many years to come redefining and personalizing our client’s experience, delivering some web based tools across the globe, so our clients can engage with us anywhere, at anytime, on any device presenting a host of really exciting price at sales shows in our newly designed galleries in New York, London and Hong Kong and of course expanding and extending our Chinese presence among other places. We’ve historically adapted to a changing world.

We are still an auction house, but we are also substantially more than that. We have built over our 270 years of success to become a global and we think very innovative art business and we continue to invest in our global relevance and reach, that’s what pretty good reason.

New markets now accounted for 40% of Sotheby’s worldwide buying activity in our sales rooms. I will be back in a minute.

I will turn the call over to Bill Sheridan who will take you through some of the details of the 10-Q and the P&L.

Thank you, Bill and thank you Jenny. As Bill mentioned, our Form 10-Q was filed this afternoon and there is a lot of detail in there that I encourage you to look at.

I will be mainly looking at page six with – of the earnings release for the few comments on liquidity. On an overall basis net loss from the first quarter of 2013 was $22.3 million or $0.33 per share.

This compared to a loss of $10.7 million or $0.16 per share in the prior period. As Bill said our – typically our first and third quarters are loss quarters for the company.

Operating revenues, total revenues decreased 3% to $101.7 million in the first quarter largely due to the decline in auction commission margin that Bill mentioned earlier. The principal driver of this was competition around high value consignments.

As Bill mentioned we did increase our buyers’ premium and we expect that to kick-in in the second quarter and through the rest of the year. Direct costs of services in the first quarter, direct costs increased $1.1 million or 14% which reflects the level and composition of Sotheby’s auction sales which increased 23% versus the prior year.

Marketing expenses were essentially flat compared to the prior year. Salaries and related costs increased $4.5 million or 8% due impart to higher full time salaries resulting from strategic headcount additions as well as salary increases.

General and administrative costs G&A expenses increased $5.1 million or 13% due to a higher level of professional and consulting fees in support of strategic corporate initiatives. Turning to net interest expense in the first quarter it increased $2.6 million or 28%, primarily due to the incremental interest expense resulting from the issuance of $300 million in senior notes issued last September.

It is our current intent to use $182 million in cash to settle our convertible debt that matures this coming June. When the convertible securities mature, net interest expenses expected to decline approximately $4.7 million on an annualized basis due to the lower interest rates realized on our most recent debt issuance.

Looking at liquidity, liquidity was strong at the end of the first quarter with cash balances of $608 million and our $300 million revolving credit facility was un-drawn. Our March 31 balance sheet reflected a growth in both receivables and the related Consignor payables due to extended payment terms granted to help market our major auctions in February in London.

Income tax expense, and with respect to those receivables we expect to collect the majority of those in the second quarter this year. Our effective income tax benefit for the first quarter was 30% which compares to 34% in the prior year.

And this is due to the – the changes due to the impact of the reversal of various tax contingencies recorded in the prior year. That’s pretty much all I have.

I will turn things back over to Bill Ruprecht.

Thank you, Bill. We got a good week at Sotheby’s in estates.

We have an impressionist modern art sale over the last couple of days, which brought $288 million near the highest pre-sale estimate of $296 million. The sales totals and the sell-through rate rank among Sotheby’s best in recent years.

Top lots were from estate of Alex and Elisabeth Lewyt are still liked by Cezanne which sold for $42 million enigmatically on the portrait we sold for $26 million. In Hong Kong, still in April, but in this quarter of course, we had an excellent group of sales which brought $280 million at the high end of the pre-sale estimate there and ahead of the equivalent prior season last October be at over 3100 lots sold to buyers, primarily from Asia, but with worldwide competition.

We had a Chinese fine painting sale more than doubling its pre-sale estimate and our watches sale brought the highest total ever for sale of timepieces in Asia and for Sotheby’s worldwide. And in jewels, we had a wonderful 28 plus carat round D-flawless diamond, which brought the world record per carat price.

Also last month, just after those sales in Doha, Qatar, we had contemporary art sales that brought outstanding results. That was over $15.2 million a record for sale of contemporary art in the Middle East and towards the high end of the pre sale estimate records for sets there for 9 artists including a record for a living Arab artist, bidders from 15 countries across 4 continents participated in the sale which certainly affirms the growing importance of Qatar in the International Art World.

Next week is a substantial week for us again here in New York. We have got three pictures of Francis Bacon, Gerhard Richter, and Barnett Newman, each work carrying a $30 million to $40 million pre sale estimate and the sales series has a total value of between $350 million and $475 million.

Also next week, we have got a jewel sale in Geneva. That sale includes a 28-carat D-flawless very important diamond ring together with a wonderful group of jewelry from Gina Lollabrigida.

The pre-sale estimate on that ring is $46 million and the total sale has an estimate of $53 million to $79 million. We have mentioned on this call and have referenced slightly earlier, our S2 galleries which are a exhibition space that we are very proud of on the second floor of this building.

We have just opened a major exhibition of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat in that space in our York Avenue facility which features over 30 works. The exhibition has important things from important dates in the artist history.

There are really some wonderful things in appreciation for both the artist’s career and market with some really, really exciting works reception to that show has been terrific and that exhibition will continue to be open through June 9th. We’ll open another exhibition tomorrow on the second floor of our gallery in New York of Brazilian contemporary art.

This autumn we will open yet another gallery space in Sotheby’s London premises which will offer then a platform in Hong Kong and London as well as in New York for terrific exhibitions, selling exhibitions along side of our auction events and opportunities to participate. Sales for the second quarter of ‘13 have performed well to-date.

Prices and demand continues to be strong we’re confident in the global art market as we see it today and are encouraged by the level and quality of consignments being offered to us and for our remaining second quarter auctions. I suspect you will have a few questions and I look forward to them.

That concludes our remarks today and over to you investors.

I’m sorry – I appreciate your suggestion that we would not look at Q1 as a typical season and we’ve always known that. But obviously the margins were lower than expected.

So, would you use the term anomaly when looking at Q1 or is there something more we should read into here?

What I would try to say and what I think is really fair George is, as far as we can see we expect second quarter results to show improvement in margin versus first quarter. And that we expect to see second quarter results of 2013 to be better margin than 2012.

So, I think 2013 Q1 again included a really quite unusual high-end mix of property that’s very unusual and not a good proxy for the rest of the year. And there are always some individual deals there that either included incentives or other forms of contingent compensation that didn’t work very well.

So, overall I think it’s fair to say, we continue to be pretty confident in our opportunities and the outlook your words are anomaly I think we have about 93 words said something pretty similar.

Okay, perfect. And then as we look at the rate increase and the obviously very strong demand you have seen to-date in the quarter relative to the supply.

Is it fair to suggest that the push back on the rate has been very limited certainly the demand equation does not appear to have changed at all, is that a fair way to look at it?

I think it’s fair to say that so long as you have got great rarities to offer and people see the works of art that we have to sell as things that either they are going to acquire now or not any – they are not going to get another crack at them, they continue to be passionate in their interest and those works of art. So, our margin and fees on those transactions I will argue are very good value for the role we play in the marketplace.

Okay and lastly from me if we were to look at the current run rate of expenses. Can you just give us some directional feel for how the rest of the year should evolve, are you in what you would define as the early phase of making some of these investments or are we making these investments in advance of the key season?

We don’t frustrating way I know for you give much guidance on the – in the region of the expenses. All I can really say George is you know if we’ve got choices to make in the business where we are seeing 40% of the demand for works of art coming from outside of traditional Western markets, our job is to be relevant globally.

Our job is to bring a world of art to a new world because in the world and where wealth is being created quickly is changing dramatically. And we can either harmonize and optimize our business for the lowest level of expense where we can ensure that this is the franchise that is relevant and uniquely positioned in the future of the art marketplace.

I choose the second, because I think that’s why people trust us and believe that after 270 years we might know something or other about what we’re doing.

I look forward to the next 270.

Thank you, George.

Hi guys. Thanks for taking my call.

Regarding your comments, Bill on the global picture, when should we expect the contribution from auction-related sales in the mainland to be a material percentage of your total revenues and also what’s your view of how the Asia line as a whole is going to evolve in ’13 as a percentage of revenues versus last year. If you could also update us on your corporate strategy with respect the lots, are you going to continue to focus on the higher value lots?

Thanks.

Okay, unpacking that I think there were sort of three threads to your question. One when are you going to mature in size some assumable run rate level of contribution from a Beijing salesroom.

The answer to that, Andrew (sic) (Oliver) is I don’t know yet. But sorry – Oliver excuse me.

The effort we’re putting into that marketplace is very important to get closer to those customers and we’re seeing in our New York salesroom earlier this week the extraordinary importance of Asia as the platform for buying not just Chinese works of art but global works of art. So, I think our investments there are very justifiable.

I just I’ll be no good and speculating in a way that’s not productive on when that’s going to really scale in terms of revenue contributions through a Beijing platform. I think overall Chinese clearly slowed down from the 13%, 12% growth rate you are looking at over much of the last 10 years.

And you’ve got something more today in the 5% to 7% category probably happening. And I think what we see in our business is that whether or not its Mainland Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, Taiwanese or expert Chinese in the Pacific rim.

This is an extraordinarily important component of our business among both among as buyers and sellers. And we’ve got a Hong Kong platform that’s a material contributor today.

We are about to have a 40th Anniversary of our presence there, started with the eight people in China or Hong Kong and now we’re somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 people in Asia. So, it’s a very significant leg of the stool I can’t give you a segment projection.

Thanks a lot, Bill, that’s helpful.

I’m sorry on the high-end issue you referenced are we continuing to be focused on the high-end of the business or do we want to go downstream. We look at it all the time because at the very bottom of our business the margins are swell.

You can get a 25% of gross margin on the lowest value work of art. What we found is that the lowest value property that we handle is not a significant contributor to the overall level of revenues in the business.

And it takes an enormous number of people and enormously high touch level of service to satisfy our client base. Well, there are number of players in the marketplace attempting to do a online or web-only set of auctions or transactional models at the low end.

None of them have got any substantive traction yet in this space where we’re authoritative of relevant. And the reason that that’s the case is because they haven’t figured out a supply chain, they haven’t figure out how to do it without touching the property a lot.

If you’re going to provide a high service, high touch model, we think that our strategy continues to be appropriate for a focus on the higher price bands than the couple of thousand dollar business in particular.

Thanks a lot. And just final question, thanks to you comments on Asia.

There has been a research that we have you done where gifts giving has kind of slowed down due to government preference for less flashy consumption, when do you think – is that impacting your business and do you have a view of when you might see a more exciting reacceleration in Asia?

Well, again I’ll just say that our sales were up versus last fall, we just had the biggest watch sale and clock sale in our history three weeks ago. I am not very good at telling you why a certain individual buys or certain work of art because the realty Andrew is that self stated was all over – God I am sorry people healthy why they buy something rather and it may not be the reason they buy something rather.

So I can’t track with any confidence or credibility the motivational map of every bidder or buyer in our sales rooms, what I’ll say is I think that the reasons and also a lot of Asian clients are buying works of art or for the same reasons people in other parts of the world are buying things. They are looking for alternative usage for cash.

They like to be surrounded with beautiful things, they like to share those things with friends or acquaintances and well I accept that there maybe some component of demand in China or in other parts of the world. We are buying something rather to give it to somebody else is what’s up that is in fact what the jewelry business is all about.

There are buyers giving the things to women. I don’t think that the data is suggesting that we are seeing our business over the last year be diminished.

Over the last three years there is no question that the velocity of consumption of really high-value works of art has shifted in Beijing. The Beijing auctioneers in aggregate are down over 50% in 2012 versus 2011.

But as I said we continue to experience robust interest and enthusiastic participation across Asia.

Thank you. Thank you and congratulations on the great sale this week.

Best regards.

Thank you, Oliver.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question.

And I dropped off for a second, if you have already been asked this I apologize in advance. You mentioned some professional fees and increase spending essentially I think you are saying on the various growth initiatives of the company.

If you could just frame that spending as to how long you see it versus staying – is it something that is – that’s a couple of quarters or all year long and just some more color on that would be helpful? Thank you.

Well, knowing I won’t frustrate you David again we don’t offer a lot of color or guidance on expenses. Our business, any business involves some elements of risk, you make bets, you make those bets because you expect to see meaningful returns on those bets.

We are in Asia making some investments that are undoubtedly very long-term plays those are real long efforts that I don’t think you are going to see quadrupling of sales in a quarter on the basis of the kind of expenditures that we have been pursuing or anything like that, but all that said, I just think we have got a prudent, relatively modest incremental investment spending around things that we hope and expect will begin to create real return for us in the not too distant future. Other than that, I can’t do much for you.

And there are defined projects that have an end of life, we are not going to comment on when that is, but we believe it’s a valuable investment?

We have not hired a flotilla of consultants who are here when we arrive in the morning and are here when we leave at night burning enormous fee structures just to make us feel good about how smart we are or anything like that. We have got very narrow and defined projects which on occasion, we look for device on, but we want to get these things right as stewards for the capital that shareholders are trusting us with.

Thank you for that. And also thank you for – I think that’s the first time I have heard flotilla on a conference call.

I think that’s been on my list for a while, so that’s great. I guess, you said, so I think the first question is that in 93 words that it was an anomaly.

So, is it fair to say that you have some project spending and 1Q was always low volume, therefore the cost impact is also an anomaly?

Well, I admire your efforts, David, to help me characterize what I am unwilling to characterize, but I hear you and I think you will hear me.

Got it. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much, Shawn. Thanks everybody for your participation and interest in our business.

Give us some good luck next week. We would love to see any of you want to come to our sales and I look forward to discussion with you over the summer.

All the best. This ends the call.