Born will work with Sotheby’s specialists in London, New York and Hong Kong to produce both the print and digital versions of the catalogues.

The business won the five-year contract in Q4 last year and it was effective from 1 January 2015. A print procurement company based in North America had previously handled the contract.

Everything is handled by Born in-house apart from printing, which is carried out by printers selected by the company in each of the three territories, and catalogue distribution, which is fulfilled by logistics and transportation company Linex.

Born has selected Uckfield-based Pureprint and Feltham-based Geoff Neal Litho to carry out the UK-based catalogue printing and finishing.

Born content production deputy managing director James Graves said: “We handle photography, high-end colour retouching, page design, print procurement and distribution.

“We’ve already produced the last array of catalogues, following Sotheby’s standard scheduling, in London, Hong Kong and New York.

“There might be 28 catalogues in any run but the print runs are quite small and you may only be printing 600 copies each time. 400 of these may go to the world’s richest people; it’s a very targeted direct marketing campaign.”

Graves said the catalogues could be anything from 192 to 400pp-plus depending on the number of lots in each auction. They are printed using B1 litho presses with 130gsm matt paper stock used for pages and 240 to 280gsm gloss paper stock used for covers.

Born Group was formed after multi-channel content and commerce company Group FMG and integrated omni-channel content and commerce business Pod1 rebranded under the new name last year following Group FMG’s acquisition of Pod1 in 2012.

The business employs nearly 700 people in total. 50 people are based in New York, with another 42 that have been taken on specifically for the Sotheby’s contract, 110 are based in London, with an additional 32 taken on to work on the Sotheby’s contract, and around 450 staff are based in Chennai, India.