This recap of Sotheby's 2017 annual report is available to AMMpro subscribers. Monthly subscriptions begin with the first month free. Feel free to subscribe and cancel before you are billed.  Sotheby's released its 2017 earnings last week with solid improvements that show the management team, especially Sotheby's new CFO Michael Goss, are making the most of a number of subtle advantages. Sotheby's CEO, Tad Smith, has what might be called a dual mandate. On the one hand, he needs to project the company into a new broader-based suite of businesses; on the other, he needs to maximize the value generated from the business where it currently makes all of its money. Unfortunately for the readers of the New York Times, a veteran stock analyst who has followed Sotheby's for years, doesn't seem to know the difference between the two mandates:

“There’s more optimism,” David Schick, the director of research and lead luxury analyst at Consumer Edge Research, said. “This is an old brand that’s bringing a lot of new business practices. Some of those initiatives are starting to bear fruit.”

What are some of those initiatives bearing fruit? Why private sales, a mainstay of Sotheby's business for decades, particularly in the years after the global financial crisis. All of the fruit harvested in Sotheby's annual report, which resulted in a 60% increase in income over the previous year, comes from Sotheby's traditional businesses. Let's look at how.