Thank you, Nicole. Good morning and thank you for joining us today.

With me here is Bill Ruprecht, Sotheby's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Patrick McClymont, Chief Financial Officer. GAAP refers to generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America.

In this earnings call financial measures are presented in accordance with GAAP and also on an adjusted non-GAAP basis. An explanation of the non-GAAP financial measures used in this earnings call, as well as reconciliation to the comparable GAAP amounts is provided as an appendix to the outline of this call, which can be found on the Investor Relations section of the company’s website.

Also 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.

Please also see our investor webpage for a slide presentation which outlines Sotheby’s full year financial results. Now I will turn the call over to Patrick.

Thank you, Jenny. Good morning everyone.

Thank you for joining us, and for your interest in Sotheby’s. I want to begin by thanking my colleagues here at Sotheby’s for a job well done in the fourth quarter and now into the New Year.

In the fourth quarter, the team flawlessly executed landmark sales such as the property of Mrs. Paul Mellon, the record setting Impressionist and Modern Auction in New York and the Collection of Winston Churchill’s daughter, Mary Soames.

As Bill will discuss the team is right back at it in 2015, with market leading sales in Old Masters in New York and both Impressionist and Contemporary in London. Ours is the best team in the business and they are executing at a high level for our clients and our shareholders.

Now on to the results. With a strong global art market and increased sales worldwide we achieved a 20% improvement in adjusted operating income in 2014.

Importantly in a growing market costs were very well controlled and are ahead of our prior guidance. This time a year ago we announced we expected a decrease in professional fees, other general and administrative costs, agency direct cost and marketing expenses totaling $22 million, assuming a similar level of net auction sales to 2013.

We have succeeded in realizing a decrease of $33 million in these areas, a 50% improvement over our original projection. As a result, total adjusted expenses in 2014 are flat with the prior year.

Moving to the detailed financial information on slide three, and beginning with our overall results, 2014 adjusted net income is $142.4 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share is $2.03, in comparison to $130.8 million, and $1.89 per diluted share, a year ago. The adjusted net income figures exclude restructuring and special charges as well as CEO separation costs.

Now let’s look at each of our main operating segments. Starting with the Agency segment on slide four, we continue to see growing revenues on strong auction sales.

In 2014, Agency gross profit increased $30.5 million, or 4%, to $729.6 million. A 70.4 million, or 10%, increase in auction commission revenues resulted from a 19% increase in net auction sales over the year.

Auction commission margin decreased from 15.9% to 14.7% in 2014 due to competitive conditions for winning high-value consignments as well as sales mix, as 2014 saw a shift in the proportion of properties sold, at higher price bands of our buyer’s premium rate structure. Keep in mind that 2014 included our successful execution of high profile sales in the fourth quarter, such as the series of sales from Mellon Collection, which came with margins consistent with highly competitive consignments.

So far in 2015 we are seeing more normalized auction commission margins. In order to enhance revenue, strengthen auction commission margins and fund innovation we enacted a new buyers premium rate structure that became effective February 1st.

Offsetting the gains in auction commission revenues private sale commissions decreased $28 million or 32% in 2014 when compared to the prior year. 2014 did not experience the significant level of individual high-value transactions we saw in 2013.

Favorably affecting Agency gross profit is a significant reduction in auction direct costs as a percentage of net auction sales from 1.78% in 2013 to 1.55% in 2014. We established a goal to reduce this cost by 10 basis points for the full year 2014 when compared to 2013.

As a result of increased efficiencies and spending controls implemented throughout 2014 we exceeded this goal and achieved a reduction of 23 basis points. Turning to slide five the increase in Principal revenues and cost of Principal revenues in 2014 is largely due to sales of property acquired from a potential consigner in lieu of the Agency segment providing an auction guarantee.

Moving to slide six we are pleased with the growth of Sotheby’s Financial Services and our ongoing process of debt funding this business. The Finance segment average loan portfolio balance for 2014 was $583.3 million, a 35% increase from the prior year.

Finance segment revenues increased $10.8 million or 35% in 2014 reflecting the growth of the portfolio. Finance segment gross profit which is net of borrowing costs increased $3.1 million or 10% in 2014.

As previously announced we have established a separate capital structure for the Finance segment that provides for the debt funding of loans through a dedicated revolving credit facility. Debt funding the loan portfolio reduces the Finance segment’s cost of capital and enhances returns.

Recently management reduced its targeted return on equity for the Finance segment from 20% to 15% to allow for additional investments to drive growth. We have added staff to this segment to drive business and increase growth of the loan portfolio.

We also have certain foreign loans and loans that are ineligible for borrowing under our revolver which affect the overall returns of the portfolio. Slide seven is an update of a chart we used last quarter.

I mentioned earlier that at this time last year we identified opportunities for savings of $22 million in certain categories of expense and we ultimately delivered $33 million in savings or 50% more than originally expected. Salaries and related costs increased $13.5 million or 5% in 2014 as compared to the prior year.

This is partly due to a $7.6 million or 5% increase in full time salaries due to the impact of midyear strategic headcount and salary increases in 2013 as well as targeted salary increases in 2014, and was marginally offset by headcount reductions carried out in the second half of 2014 as a result of the 2014 restructuring plan. Also contributing to the increase in salaries and related costs is a $5.1 million or 9% growth in incentive compensation expense principally, due to the higher level of earnings as measured by adjusted EBITDA relative to the prior year.

As you can see on slide eight, incentive compensation as a percent of adjusted EBITDA is 21% in 2014 which is a bit below the 23% to 24% ratio in 2010 to 2013. Sotheby’s effective income tax rate was 39.2% in 2014 compared to 30% in 2013.

This increase in 2014 effective income tax rate over the prior year was caused by two income tax benefits that were recognized in 2013 for which there were no comparable benefits in 2014. Based on our recently completed financial planning process we are announcing a number of expense estimates for 2015, which are outlined on slide nine.

Direct cost as a percent of net sales is expected to grow approximately five basis points in 2015 as compared to 2014, in order to support new middle market auction sales. Therefore we are keeping 18 basis of improvement we delivered in 2014.

For marketing expenses an approximate 10% increase is targeted net of revenues from advertising primarily for a revamped marketing strategy to increase brand preeminence and accessibility. For full time salaries, a 4% to 5% increase from 2014 is currently expected largely due to investments in collecting categories and activities with the highest potential for growth as well as inflationary salary increases.

This is net of savings from the restructuring plan initiated in 2014. Staff reductions and unfilled vacancies associated with the restructuring plan will result in annualized savings of approximately $13 million of which $11 million is being reinvested through the addition of new staff to support the growth.

We expect professional fees to increase 3% to 4% compared to 2014 due to senior level recruitment expenses, including the cost of recruiting a new CEO and consulting fees associated with certain Board level strategic initiatives among other items. Lastly, other general and administrative expenses are estimated to grow 2% to 4% due to facilities related expense as well as higher travel and entertainment expense from increased business getting activities.

Sotheby's and RM Auctions, the world’s foremost collector car auctioneer recently announced the formation of new strategic partnership, which is branded RM Sotheby's, as Sotheby's acquired a 25% ownership stake for just more than $30 million. This long-term investment comes as the more than $2 billion market for the finest collectible automobile continues to grow presenting increasing opportunities for both companies.

Overtime Sotheby's will have the ability to expand its ownership stake as the partnership evolves and grows. Work between the two teams is well underway and is going smoothly as we head into a busy spring season for Sotheby's and RM Sotheby's.

Rob Myers and his entrepreneurial team built the best business in the sector and we’re very pleased to partner with them. At this time I’d like to hand the call over to Bill Ruprecht for his remarks.

Thank you Patrick. We have experienced exceptional auctions and continued strong global demand in our sales year-to-date.

Competition for the best works is robust in this strong market and we’re certainly winning our share of those and of course this keeps commission margins under some tension. But as Patrick said those margins appear to be stabilizing year-to-date.

2014 saw double-digit sales growth in many important categories, Impressionist, Modern, Contemporary, Jewelry, Old Masters, American Art among others, where almost a third of our categories had the highest levels of sales in our history. And across Sotheby’s worldwide auctions one-third of our buyers in 2014 were new to us accounting for about fifth of global sales.

Sotheby’s dominated in Asia where we had over $900 million in sales and Chinese buyers purchased more than $1 billion and did it across our sales rooms globally. On the digital front some figures offer important vantage points.

We saw 25% more buyers online in 2014 than the previous year. The number of digital catalogs being reviewed is now four times what we see in the people reviewing in print, a complete reversal from only a few years ago and in our key categories like Contemporary and Impressionist paintings even more catalogs are being reviewed digitally.

Stay tuned for the eBay partnership where we’ll be experiencing truly large audiences interacting with us at a [indiscernible] for the first time later this spring. 2015 as I’ve indicated is off to a good start.

Our January Old Masters Week in New York totaled over $79 million and our February sales of Impressionist to Contemporary Art brought well over $0.5 billion. We’re leading the market in all three of these categories this year.

We have an important Contemporary sale this week in New York and another important Contemporary sale next week in London. Later this month in New York and next month in Hong Kong we have our Asian sales series.

Also next month we’re offering a perfect 100 carat Emerald cut diamond with a presale estimate of $19 million to $25 million in our New York Magnificent Jewels sale. Our friends at RM Sotheby's had a sale on March 14 in Amelia Island Florida with a presale estimate of $58 million, which is an increase of 61% compared to their same sale last year.

We wish them great success. As is usual this time of year we're very much in the middle of property gathering for our spring sales and those efforts are progressing well.

These successes really highlight the breadth and depth of Sotheby’s expertise and demonstrate our ability to deliver results for stakeholders. In short, we're reaching more collectors in more corners of the world through more channels.

We look forward to your questions now. That concludes our prepared remarks.

Hey thanks for all the details in the outlook and expense control. Regarding your statement about 2015 now and a normalized mix and sales and revenues flat to last year, what's driving that and do you expect that trend to continue and also you had comments in your deck about your revamped market strategy and accessibility, is that a change of tone from your prior strategic efforts, the focus on more expensive lots and I just had a follow-up modeling question.

Thanks.

Sure. So I think there was two questions, first just on 2015 and what we're seeing so far and it sounded like the second was asking for a little more clarity on the marketing comments.

Yes, exactly.

Okay. Look, on 2015, still early in the year obviously, but what we've seen so far with our sales, we had an Impressionist sale and a contemporary sale in London, we had an Old Master sale here in New York and what we've seen, as Bill commented the margins have been consistent with what we've seen in previous periods and so we haven't seen the - what we saw on the fourth quarter of last year which was very successful sales, high profile collections that ended up coming with relatively skinnier margins.

This year is more of a return to the more normalized environment. In terms of the marketing plan what we are intending to communicate there was simply that and you saw this last fall, when we launched our new advertising campaign for our sales, we’ll continue with that, we are broadening scope of that, we're trying to make sure that we continue to support the sales and that we're also putting our best put forward in terms of our overall brand and we think it's a smart investment this year and to make sure that we're continuing to push on that.

It doesn't represent a change in the strategy, Oliver to your question. It's continuing to support that marketing plan that we launched in the second half of last year.

Thanks, Patrick and Patrick some of the focus for investors has been on the philosophy on capital returns and liquidity and some of that technicality in relation to the covenant and aggregate borrowing availability and unrestricted cash, could you walk us through like a high level about how you're thinking about capital returns and also if you had any detail about at the end of quarter for those aggregate borrowing availability and unrestricted cash it would help. Thank you.

Sure. In terms of capital return, I think I would just point you to the press release that we put out a couple weeks ago, where the Board stands right now is they're very focused on the CEO transition and at this time it makes sense to hold off on capital return.

In terms of how we're thinking about liquidity and there'll be disclosure obviously on all this in the 10-K and that will go through where we stand in terms of borrowing availability but currently we don't have anything borrowed on the revolving credit facility in support of the Agency business. We still have some availability on the Financial Services side.

That portfolio has continued to grow and all the new loans that we put in place are eligible for the credit facility, so we have fully funded those and that's what we will continue to do in 2015 and we’ve still got some headroom in that facility to further grow that portfolio.

Thank you. Best regards.

Thanks Oliver.

Hi, good morning. It's Taposh Bari.

Any insights you can provide into the collection season so far and specifically I was curious to see if there is any feedback from your specialists regarding either consigner or buyer mentality, amidst what seems to be a pretty volatile macro currency and commodity environment globally. Thanks.

This is Bill. I'll start with the particular, the February sales in London where against the backdrop of some instability in Russia and questions about Chinese growth, you could have seen in those high profile Impressionist and Contemporary sales some hesitance or reticence to bid on those quality offerings.

In fact, we saw just the opposite, strong demand, a strong commitment towards wanting to acquire great works of art, leading to one another things, the highest price for our Gerhard Richter's in I believe Living Artists in the marketplace. So whenever you’re seeing strong demand that tends to facilitate discussions with people who are thinking about selling works of art, because the market is clearly open and demand is strong.

So as is the case in this business with very limited visibility, all I can say about deals, what’s been announced, and what’s underway is that there is a bunch of very active discussions and opportunities which we’re engaged in. I point you in particular to a sale next week in London of Contemporary Art from an individual collector, which I’m hearing good things about and I think is promising as a sale event for the company.

Great, good to hear. And then the other question we have is just around your strategy around auction guarantees.

That line picked up pretty materially in terms of in-house guarantees, both for ’14 and especially into the fourth quarter. I guess as we do a postmortem how did that decision materialize versus your expectation, looks like that auction guarantee line within Agency was down about - or you had a loss about $16 [ph] million.

Is that roughly in line with what you expected and should we continue to expect that decision to reflect auction guarantees in house to increase in to 2015?

I think that the guarantee book is remarkably opportunistic in terms of what flow we see and what the particular appetite of those sellers are. I think you’ll see in the filings, which will be out right after this call that we’ve got an un-hedged guarantee position at present of, I think quite a modest between $40 million and $50 million.

And so we’ll see what comes forth. There is a bunch of opportunity, some of it we hedge, some of it we hold.

And sometimes our decisions are extremely rewarding and sometimes they’re not. I think as the company sees opportunity that it’s confident in it’ll continue to deploy capital.

But I can’t give you a rising or a declining tide narrative that’s on point, because it’s so responsive to the deal flow which we represent it.

So maybe if I could just go back to the original question then around 4Q decisions where they rewarding or not just if we can evaluate that specific season?

Yes, what we’ve said is when you look at the - we look the guarantee portfolio in the aggregate. So it includes obviously what we make in terms of buyer’s premium, the objects that are sold and it includes what we either make or lose on the principal side.

And when you look in the aggregate the guaranteed portfolio was profitable.

Great, thank you. Best of luck.

Thank you.

Hey guys, it’s Jason Kreyer on for George. I just had a couple of questions on your expense targets for the year.

I’m wondering relative to the restructuring plan from last summer. I’m wondering if there was any or at least if you can quantify the cost savings that were recognized in the back half of 2014.

And then if there was any change in your thought process that seemed like when you initiated the restructuring plan that was more focused on cost reduction than what you’ve outlined for 2014. So just if you have any color on that?

And then finally the categories and geographies that you’re targeting for growth areas, so wondering if you can provide any more detail on what you’re looking at?

Okay. So the third question was growth, the second question was the changing philosophy in terms of the restructuring.

What was the first one?

The first one is just what you recognized from that restructuring plan in 2014?

So the plan was announced in July of 2014 and we began execution shortly after that. So there is some benefit that’s reflected in the fourth quarter of 2014.

But the lion’s share of it will show up in 2015. We haven’t disclosed the specific number that we had in ‘14.

In terms of philosophy no, there is no change at all. We had always talked about what it made sense to do is dial down the levers in certain areas so that we can dial them up in other areas where these opportunities to grow.

So that’s has been a very consistent philosophy throughout. And as it related to the third question, where we are thinking about growing, I think a clear example is the middle market and we have mentioned that we expect to see our auction direct costs go up a little bit in 2015 because we will be investing and supporting those sales and it’s a similar story, when you think about people.

And we need to have the right people in place both on the consignment side and in some cases in the client management side to make sure that we can go ahead and source that property and effectively sell it. So what we try to do is think about our strong categories where we see further opportunities for growth and go out and make sure that we got the team in place to continue to push on that.

Thank you. And just one other question, the private sales for 2014 kind of slowed over the course of the year and it seems like there is a shift from sellers looking to pursue private sales to pursue the auction route and I am just wondering if you have any color on that, or any thoughts why you are seeing this shift?

We study it, as I think you may recall, we did a very significantly larger number of transactions privately in 2014 than we did in the prior period, but indeed the aggregate value of the works, a number of the highest dollar lots were not included in ’14 as they had been in prior periods. I don’t see a meaningful shift in seller mindset.

Certainly big auctions and successful outcomes tempt people towards auctions and those opportunities to pit bidders against one another are buffered in some circumstances by some individual’s appetite for privacy and certainty around the traction. So how those get put in the blender and how they all are expressed on a quarter-to-quarter basis is uncertain to us as well as to U.S.

investors.

Okay, thank you.

Good morning, a couple of questions. First, you indicated that online buyers grew by 25%, are you saying bidding across all categories is demand focused on the lower end working collectibles, can you give us a little more color on that?

What I said Kristine is the 25% increase in the number of buyers of works of art at Sotheby’s through online. We had - I am not going to dig up the statistic in terms of works of our - very high value works of our, that were sold to online - through an online channel.

I think it’s in the press release for the year. Let me see if I could find it.

It’s that 10 lots were sold for more than $500,000 to online bidders across the sales room and categories and we had 20% increase in new bidders online in ‘14 compared to the prior period and as I said 25% more buyers online in ‘14 compared to the prior period. The high point for us in terms of a formula that was very successful both in terms of an offering and an form of online engagement was the collection of Mrs.

Paul Mellon where we had 71% of the lots having bids placed for them online and 30% of the buyers were online. So it was a large sale that included a number of reasonably priced mid-market lots, a famous seller with a recognized name, beautiful set of catalogs and all that aggregated to a very large number of people wanting to participate online.

So we are continuing to see traction there.

Okay, great that's helpful. And then, can you, how should we think about the tax rate for 2015, in the high 30s?

Yes, consistent with what we talked about last year, we're now targeting something in the high 30s.

Okay. And then just lastly, if we look at 2014, clearly a great year as far as revenues go, but EPS still is below peak levels off quite a bit from peak levels years ago.

And I'm just wondering, I mean do you think that you can return to peak earnings level and if so I mean what's going to take to get there?

I guess, Kristine the way we think about it, if you look at the business and we're working down the income statement, we've produced $300 million of EBITDA in 2014, just short of that $278 million of EBIT. When you get to the net income line obviously the change in tax rate is a meaningful issue there.

But from a profitability standpoint we think we’ve got the business performing well. We've expanded our operating margins this year compared to last year.

And again if you look at the EBITDA margins, that's gone up by close to 300 basis points, similar on the EBIT margin. And so we are seeing an expansion in operating profit, we are seeing a return to having operating leverage in the business.

And as we continue to drive growth we would expect to see more of that. So we do think that from a margin standpoint the business is performing well and headed in a good direction.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you all very much for your ongoing interest in Sotheby’s. Wish us a good next couple of weeks in particular, in the contemporary marketplace and in the Asian sales as we end the quarter and begin the second quarter.

Thanks very much and have a good spring.