Patrick Drahi, the founder of the Altice telecom empire, is a wily and unsentimental investor—a master at using debt to finance his aspirations. In 2019, he surprised the world by acquiring Sotheby’s for $3.7 billion and taking it private, financing a large portion of the acquisition with $1.88 billion in bonds. But as Altice struggles against its debt load, and upon the revelation that one of his closest partners had been bilking him via a procurement scam, Drahi has needed to shore up his hold on the auction house, which will need to refinance some of its debt in the coming years. Of course, the art market contraction and subsequent hit to Sotheby’s revenue have only made matters more pressing.