The Financial Times’s John Dizard spoke to Christie’s Michael O’Neal who runs the online business. O’Neal has some details that haven’t been released before: “about 50 per cent of our online population have been new clients, so we are not cannibalising one channel for another.”

Christie’s online sales are increasing, and 28 per cent of clients are now bidding online. The tickets tend to be smaller, though. The average lot value of an online sale last year was $8,123, compared with a global lot average of $48,900. And as Mr O’Neal says: “We had a physical sale for all 365 auctions, so our cost base is the same.”

Lesson’s from IMF’s Egypt Blunder (Financial Times)