ARTINFO (and others) reported a few weeks ago that hedge fund honcho Steve Cohen had purchased Picasso’s “Le Rêve” from casino magnate Steve Wynn shortly after settling an SEC investigation against his company, SAC Capital. It turns out that Cohen may have been a little miffed by those reports, as his art advisor — in a rare public comment about a private sale — went on record with the New York Times to correct the timeline.
Sandy Heller, Cohen’s advisor, told the Times that Cohen did, in fact, buy the painting from Wynn (via William Acquavella), but the reports had both the timing and the price of the sale wrong:
Sandy Heller, Mr. Cohen’s art adviser, said on Wednesday that the sale was completed in early November of last year, a few weeks before the insider trading cases against SAC Capital entered a more serious phase with the indictment of one of his former employees. The purchase price was $150 million, not $155 million, according to people with knowledge of the transaction.
Apparently, it’s a deal that can be made in roughly 180 seconds*.
In late October, Mr. Cohen received a phone call from William Acquavella, the Manhattan art dealer, with news that Mr. Wynn, his longtime client, was finally ready to sell “Le Rêve,” which was hanging in Mr. Acquavella’s gallery on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
“We were at the gallery the next morning,” Mr. Heller said. “In three minutes we had a deal.”
*Okay, he’s been thinking about this deal since at least 2006. But still, three minutes to say yes to $150 million!
— Shane Ferro
