Billionaire plans $50M auction for rare 1982 Château Petrus

investmentnews.com:

Two years after selling $11.4 million worth of wine from his cellar, the Taiwanese billionaire Pierre Chen is set to sell an even bigger tranche starting this fall. Some 25,000 bottles, worth an estimated $50 million, will go to auction at Sotheby’s in five dedicated auctions over the next 12 months. The first will be staged in Hong Kong in November.

Chen is the founder and chairman of the Yageo Group, an electronic component company that employs 40,000 people worldwide, according to its website. Outside industry circles, he’s known for his art collection. ARTnews named him one of the top 200 collectors in the world; in an interview with the Art Newspaper, Chen disclosed that he has seven Picassos, 10 Gerhard Richters and two Francis Bacons, among others.

“The key thing for Pierre is that this underlines his approach to all the things he considers great in life,” says George Lacey, Sotheby’s head of wine for Asia. “Not just wine, but also food and art. His approach to life is that things are best when shared.”

The bottles Chen has placed to auction represent, Lacey says, “a fraction of Pierre’s entire collection.” Chen is selling, Lacey continues, because his collection has simply grown too large for him to enjoy on his own. “We were given a list of wines within the collection that he would be interested to sell,” Lacey explains. “We had a conversation about valuing them and what works in the market now. We went back and forth with him and his team and ultimately put together a collection that’s representative of him and his tastes.”

Should Chen’s collection sell for its estimate, it will become one of the most expensive single-owner auctions in recent history. In comparison, last year the Hospices de Beaune