Artsy-Artnet Merger sees key staffers cut loose. Was the writing on the wall?

Rumours that Artsy had been eyeing up Artnet were doing the rounds long before the companies announced they had “joined forces” on April 15.

Back in October 2024, I was told by a former Artsy employee that a deal was in the offing, so I asked Artsy. “We’re friendly with the folks at Artnet but we aren’t in active acquisition discussions,” a company spokesperson told me.

While the two companies have since consummated their friendship by merging, it smells more like a takeover, with Jeffrey Yin, Artsy’s CEO, put in charge of the joint operation. 

Private investment firm Beowolff Capital, founded and led by Artnet’s owner and former Goldman Sachs partner, Andrew Wolff, acquired majority control of Artsy and took Artnet private over the past 12 months. Yin and Artnet’s ex-CEO Wolff—who is now chairman of both brands—wasted no time in taking an axe to Artnet News, laying off several senior writers and editors, some of whom have spent their entire careers at the publication.

Some fat was also trimmed from Artnet’s online art selling operation, with more staffers let go and folded into Artsy’s.

The exact number of redundancies has not been disclosed, but in a recent interview with Monopol, Wolff claimed less than half of Artnet News’ staff were let go. He said the cuts were “difficult decisions” but vital so Artnet could invest in future products and services.

Wolff explained the “product roadmap” will focus on marketplace strength, enterprise software for business efficiency, expanded data services combining Artnet’s secondary and Artsy’s primary and user data, and media. Artsy also has an editorial arm, mostly tailored to help collectors find artists; he added that both brands will keep their “distinctive voices.

The severances at Artnet, which was founded in 1989, have dominated the story so far. But someone who wanted to remain anonymous at Artsy told me that it had also seen people given their marching orders. “As with any restructure, [the redundancies] spanned departments across both brands,” they said. 

At Artnet News, editor-in-chief Naomi Rea resigned at some point before the merger. Rea has been replaced by Andrew Russeth, who edited Artnet News’ paywalled PRO section, on an interim basis. He’s highly regarded and is a good bet to land the role permanently. His deputies Eileen Kinsella and Sarah Cascone were laid off. Both senior reporters had been at the publication for more than a decade. The Berlin office, including senior editor Kate Brown, who ran The Art Angle podcast, was also canned. 

Wolff bought a majority stake in Artnet in May last year, relinquishing the Neuendorf family’s 27-year control of the company, with Hans Neuendorf, 88, quitting as CEO at the start of 2026. This shakeup will now be seen as an omen for the Artnet employees brandishing their P45s.

None of those laid off were willing to comment on the record, so it’s hard to know for sure if the redundancies were expected. However, the fact Rea quit before they came suggests cuts may have been inevitable. In the months leading up to the merger, a couple of reliable sources told me that Artnet was struggling financially, no surprise for a media organisation these days, but the extent of the journalist culling came as a shock. Lest we forget, The Washington Post said goodbye to a third of its staff earlier this year. 

Artnet operates a hybrid platform combining data, marketplace, and its media arm. It sells subscriptions to its price database, giving collectors and professionals transparency in a notoriously murky market. It earns commissions from online auctions and artwork sales, and charges galleries fees to list inventory and access buyers, like Artsy. Artnet News’ finances come from advertising, sponsored content, and its paywall. Just how much money it was haemorrhaging is anyone’s guess, but the cash flow must have been sticky to make so many people jobless. Not long ago under Andrew Goldstein’s leadership (he departed in 2023) and with Julia Halperin as executive editor, Artnet News was regarded as a successful digital operation with a solid social strategy, an impressive podcasting arm and respected data-driven investigations, and, while that reputation continued into Rea’s reign, the bottom looks like it fell out of the business model.

As for Artsy, it is a discovery-led art marketplace, earning mainly from gallery subscriptions and sales commissions with editorial used lightly to drive engagement. Unlike Artnet, it does not centre on paid data or a major news arm, focusing instead on facilitating transactions rather than monetising market information and authority.

I asked Yin what went wrong at Artnet. “We had to make difficult structural decisions across both businesses and multiple departments in order to build one go-forward organisation,” he said. “Those decisions were not a judgment on the value of Artnet’s editorial work. They were about ensuring the combined company has the financial strength and organisational focus to continue growing and to invest in the next generation of products, services, and content.”

Going forward, Yin told me that the business plan for Artnet News and Artsy Editorial “will remain distinct, each with its own voice, audience, and editorial purpose.” 

“Artnet News will continue to provide trusted reporting, art market insight and journalism with a global lens, grounded in editorial independence and rigorous standards,” he said. “Beloved columns the industry relies on, including Wet Paint, will continue. We see enormous value in the Artnet brand and its editorial voice and are committed to maintaining that alongside Artsy Editorial’s discovery-led storytelling for broader and newer collecting audiences. As with any modern media business, content will continue to evolve over time across formats, including video and podcasts.”

In Artsy and Artnet’s merger statement, they said “for now, nothing is changing for partners or users. Both platforms will continue to operate as they do today, and relationships with each remain the same. There will be more exciting new offerings to share in the coming months… Bringing [the companies] together is about building the foundation for the art world to thrive online, so that buying, selling, and learning about art becomes easier and more accessible than ever.”