French-Israeli mogul Patrick Drahi set to buy auction house Sotheby's

After founding Altice, his successes have included the purchase of SFR, the French mobile operator.

Now based in Switzerland, Mr Drahi is said to be worth £7 billion.

His deal — which values Sotheby’s at  £2.1 million — would put it back into private ownership after over three decades as a public company.

The company also has around £800,000 debt.

The purchase would also enable Sotheby’s to compete with rival auction house Christie’s, which has been able to complete many deals away from public scrutiny.

“He’s a very secretive, elitist art collector… he is particularly fond of contemporary art,” ArtPrice CEO Thierry Ehrmann told the AFP news agency adding that Mr Drahi had in his art collection some “fairly spectacular” works by the 20th century Belarussian-French artist Marc Chagall.