founded 1796 founder harry phillips headquarters london united kingdom parent mercury group website phillips.com phillips formerly known as phillips the auctioneers and briefly as phillips de pury is a british auction house . it was founded in london in 1796 and has head offices in london and in new york city . 1 history edit phillips was founded in 1796 by harry phillips who had been a clerk to james christie . the business held twelve auctions in its first year and soon became successful . napoleon and beau brummel were among the early patrons . harry phillips died in 1840 and the business passed to his son william augustus who renamed it phillips & son ; when his son in law frederick neale joined in 1882 the company became phillips son & neale . it was renamed phillips in the 1970s ; 1 it was usually referred to as phillips the auctioneers . in 1999 a majority stake in the company was sold to venture capitalists 3i who resold it shortly after for a considerable profit . citation needed the company was bought in 1999 by bernard arnault of lvmh mo t hennessy louis vuitton . 1 2 after a series of disastrous sales and extremely heavy losses bonhams bought the uk operations of phillips in 2001 and merged them into the bonhams name . 3 most of the rump of the business was closed ; some smaller departments were acquired by simon de pury and daniella luxembourg who traded under the name phillips de pury & company . 4 in 2002 simon de pury acquired majority control of the firm . 1 the company opened its european headquarters in howick place london in early 2008 . 5 on 6 october 2008 the company was purchased by the russian mercury group 1 which paid approximately 60 million for it . simon de pury sold his remaining shares to mercury in late 2012 and left the company . 6 the name was changed back to phillips . 6 4 references edit a b c d e about us . phillips . accessed august 2013 . russian luxury retailer acquires phillips de pury & company artnews 14 october 2008 . accessed 10 january 2014 . julia finch bonhams and phillips confirm merger the guardian 14 july 2001 . accessed 10 january 2014 . a b brian boucher 21 december 2012 . simon de pury resigns from phillips de pury . art in america . archived 21 january 2015 . phillips de pury discover victoria . a b sarah douglas 1 january 2013 . phillips sans simon what s next for simon de pury and phillips now that they ve parted ways . the new york observer . archived 2 january 2015 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title phillips auctioneers & oldid 720843205 categories london auction housescompanies established in 1796hidden categories use dmy dates from august 2013use british english from august 2013use list defined references from august 2013all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from august 2013 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschitalianonederlands edit links this page was last modified on 18 may 2016 at 08 24 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view