Sotheby's is being bought by telecoms billionaire Patrick Drahi in a deal valuing the art auction house at $3.7 billion, reports BBC News.
The company, which has been on the New York stock market for 31 years, will now return to private ownership after a troubled period.
French entrepreneur and art collector Mr Drahi, the founder of telecoms group Altice, is buying Sotheby's amid signs that the art market is booming again.
Sotheby's arch rival Christie's is also French-owned via the Pinault family.
After the financial crisis sent the art market into a tailspin, Sotheby's went through rounds of cost-costing and faced attacks by hedge fund investors Dan Loeb and Mick McGuire.
Mr Loeb's Third Point group is the second-biggest investor with a 14% stake.
A prominent art collector, Mr Loeb praised the sale, telling Reuters that the price "affirms the value we saw when we first invested in Sotheby's, and rewards long-term investors like Third Point who believed in its potential".
The price being paid is a 61% premium to Sotheby's closing share price on Friday.
Confirmation that the art auction market had picked up came in November 2017 when Salvator Mundi, the long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ commissioned by King Louis XII of France, sold in New York for a record-breaking $450.3m including fees. Christie's handled that sale.