French billionaire Drahi acquires Sotheby's in $3.7 bn deal: auction house

French telecoms and media mogul Patrick Drahi is acquiring Sotheby's auction house, one of the world's biggest art brokers, in a $3.7 billion deal, the British-founded company said Monday.

Drahi, the billionaire head of the Altice empire which owns Virgin Mobile and several French media houses including BFM news channel and Liberation newspaper, is acquiring Sotheby's in a deal that values the auction house at $57 per share, Sotheby's said.