Hedge fund manager Chanos says art market frothy, shorting Sotheby's

A Sotheby's employee poses with artist Henry Moore's "Working model for Mother and Child : Block Seat" at Sotheby's auction house in London November 14, 2014. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

LONDON (Reuters) - Hedge fund Kynikos Associates founder James Chanos said the art market is frothy and he is currently shorting Sotheby's <BID.N>, a global auctioneer of art and jewelery.

"I am not here to bury the art market, I am an art collector myself," the short-seller, who is better known for his bearish bets on China, said at the Sohn Investment Conference in London on Wednesday.

"But I do think that there are inherent risks in this sort of cyclical business," he added.

Chanos, the founder of Kynikos, managed about $4 billion at the end of Feb. 2014, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

(Reporting by Simon Jessop and Nishant Kumar; editing by Susan Thomas)