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The Louvre inspected the “Salvator Mundi” and certified it as the work of Leonardo da Vinci. But it kept those findings secret after a squabble with the painting’s owners.

French curators had worked for a decade to prepare a major exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci. When it opened, though, the most talked-about painting they had planned to show — “Salvator Mundi,” the most expensive work ever sold at auction — was nowhere to be seen.

Plucked from shabby obscurity at a New Orleans estate sale, the painting had been sold in 2017 as a rediscovered “lost” Leonardo and fetched more than $450 million from an anonymous bidder who kept it hidden from view. The chance to see it at the Louvre museum’s anniversary show two years later had created a sensation in the international art world, and its absence whipped up a storm of new questions.

Had the Louvre concluded that the painting was not actually the work of Leonardo, as a vocal handful of scholars had insisted? Had the buyer — reported to be Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, though he had never acknowledged it — declined to include it in the show for fear of public scrutiny? The tantalizing notion that the brash Saudi prince might have gambled a fortune on a fraud had already inspired a cottage industry of books, documentaries, art world gossip columns, and even a proposed Broadway musical.

None of that was true.

In fact, the crown prince had secretly shipped the “Salvator Mundi” to the Louvre more than a year earlier, in 2018, according to several French officials and a confidential French report on its authenticity that was obtained by The New York Times. The report also states that the painting belongs to the Saudi Culture Ministry — something the Saudis have never acknowledged.

A team of French scientists subjected the unframed canvas to a weekslong forensic examination with some of the most advanced technology available to the art world, and in their undisclosed report they had pronounced with more authority than any previous assessment that the painting appeared to be the work of Leonardo’s own hand.

Yet the Saudis had withheld it nonetheless, for entirely different reasons: a disagreement over a Saudi demand that their painting of Jesus should hang next to the “Mona Lisa,” several French officials said last week, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks were confidential.

Far from a dispute about art scholarship, the withdrawal of the painting appears instead to have turned on questions of power and ego.

Some art world skeptics say they suspect the Saudis were never serious about including the painting in the French show, and had wanted to keep the work under wraps to increase the commercial potential of installing it later at a planned tourism site in the kingdom. Current and former French officials, though, say that the Saudis were eager for their newly acquired trophy to hang at the Louvre, as long as it was placed beside the world’s most famous painting.

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Dismissing those demands as irrational and unworkable, the French, in turn, refused to make public their own positive assessment of its authenticity unless the Saudis let the “Salvator Mundi” be included in the exhibition in the Louvre, which the French government oversees.

And the resulting diplomatic standoff between the French and the Saudis has kept the painting out of sight as the cloud of intrigue around it continues to swell.

“Frankly, I think all that taradiddle would have evaporated,” said Luke Syson, the director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, a curator who oversaw a 2011 Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery in London that included the “Salvator Mundi.”

If only the painting were displayed, he explained, “people could decide for themselves by experiencing the picture.”

Believed to have been painted around 1500, “Salvator Mundi” was one of two similar works listed in an inventory of the collection of King Charles I of England after his execution in 1649. But the historical record of its ownership ends in the late 18th century.

Then, around 2005, a pair of New York art dealers browsing a New Orleans estate sale spotted a badly restored and partially painted over image that they suspected might be worth a closer look. They acquired it for less than $10,000 and brought it to a skilled specialist to remove the later paint layers and restore the original.

It changed hands few times since then, and hung as a Leonardo in the 2011 exhibition at the National Gallery in London. But it was the record-setting bid in 2017 — for $450 million — that turned the “Salvator Mundi” into the stuff of front-page headlines, especially after The Times reported that the anonymous buyer was a surrogate for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Now the controversy has made headlines again with the release of a new French documentary this past week claiming that the Louvre had concluded that Leonardo had “merely contributed” to the “Salvator Mundi.” Set to air on French television on Tuesday, the documentary features two disguised figures, identified as French government officials, asserting that Crown Prince Mohammed would not loan the painting to the anniversary exhibition because the Louvre refused to attribute the work fully to Leonardo.

In a telephone interview, the documentary’s director, Antoine Vitkine, said he stood by its claims, saying the president of the Louvre had refused to comment on the museum’s judgment of the “Salvator Mundi.”

The Louvre had insisted that the report on the painting’s authenticity “did not exist,” Mr. Viktine said.

Despite their denials, the Louvre curators had secretly prepared a glossy, magazine-style 46-page summary of the conclusions of their forensic examination of the painting. Its existence was first reported in March 2020 by Alison Cole of The Art Newspaper. Scanned copies of the confidential report became prized possessions among prominent Leonardo experts across the world, and The Times obtained multiple copies.

Experts at the Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, an independent culture ministry institute, used fluorescent X-rays, infrared scans and digital cameras aimed through high-powered microscopes to match signature details of the materials and artistic techniques in the “Salvator Mundi” with the Louvre’s other Leonardo masterpieces.

The thin plank of wood on which the “Salvator Mundi” was painted was the same type of walnut from Lombardy that Leonardo used in other works. The artist had mixed fine powdered glass in the paint, as Leonardo did in his later years.

Traces of hidden painting under the visible layers, details in the locks of Christ’s hair, and the shade of bright vermilion used in the shadows all pointed to the hand of Leonardo, the report concluded.

“All these arguments tend to favor the idea of an entirely ‘autographed’ work,” Vincent Delieuvin, one of two curators of the anniversary exhibition, wrote in a lengthy essay describing the examination, noting that the painting had been “unfortunately damaged by bad conservation” and by “old, unquestionably too brutal restorations.”

Jean-Luc Martinez, the Louvre president, was even more definitive. “The results of the historical and scientific study presented in this publication allow us to confirm the attribution of the work to Leonardo da Vinci,” he wrote in the preface. (His current term is set to end this month, and President Emmanuel Macron of France is overdue to announce whether he will extend Mr. Martinez’s tenure or appoint a new leader.)

The Louvre was so eager to include the “Salvator Mundi” in its anniversary exhibition that the curators planned to use an image of the painting for the front of its catalog, officials said.

But the Saudis’ insistence that the “Salvator Mundi” also be twinned with the “Mona Lisa” was asking too much, the French officials said.

Extraordinary security measures surrounding the “Mona Lisa” make the painting exceptionally difficult to move from its place on a special partition in the center of the Salle des États, a vast upstairs gallery. Placing a painting next to it would be impossible, the French officials argued.

Franck Riester, the French culture minister at the time, tried for weeks to mediate, proposing that as a compromise the “Salvator Mundi” could move close to the “Mona Lisa” after a period in the anniversary show, the French officials said.

And even after the exhibition opened without the “Salvator Mundi,” in October 2019, French officials kept trying.

Prince Bader bin Farhan al-Saud, an old friend of Crown Prince Mohammed who had acted as his surrogate bidder for the “Salvator Mundi,” had later been named Saudi Arabia’s minister of culture. When he happened to visit to Paris, the French culture minister and Louvre president led him on a private tour of the museum and exhibition to try to persuade him to lend the painting, the French officials said.

A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington declined to comment.

A planned section of the catalog detailing the authentication was removed before publication, and the museum ordered that all copies of the report be locked away in storage.

Sophie Grange, a Louvre spokeswoman, said museum officials would be forbidden to discuss any such document because French rules prohibited disclosing any evaluation or authentication of works not shown in the museum.

Corinne Hershkovitch, a leading French art lawyer, said these “long-held traditions” had been “formalized by law in 2013, in a decree establishing the status of heritage conservators.”

But with the French refusing to talk about the painting and the Saudis refusing to show it, the proliferating questions about the painting have taken a toll, said Robert Simon, a New York art dealer involved in the rediscovery of the “Salvator Mundi.”

“It is soiled in a way,” he said, “because of all this unwarranted speculation.”

Covid-19 Drug Prevents Symptomatic Disease in Study, Regeneron Says

Drugmaker says it will ask federal health regulators to clear use among people who haven’t been vaccinated

An antibody drug from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. REGN -0.25% reduced the risk of developing symptomatic Covid-19 infection by 81% compared with a placebo in people living with someone infected by the new coronavirus, a study found.

The results point to potential new preventive applications for the drug, which is already in use to treat earlier Covid-19 cases.

Regeneron said Monday it would ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to expand the drug’s authorization among people exposed to the virus who haven’t yet been vaccinated, which could provide temporary stopgap protection as people await vaccines.

So far, 21.3% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, and 35.3% has received at least one shot.

“With more than 60,000 Americans continuing to be diagnosed with Covid-19 every day, the REGEN-COV antibody cocktail may help provide immediate protection to unvaccinated people who are exposed to the virus,” said George D. Yancopoulos, Regeneron’s president and chief scientific officer.

Regeneron issued the Phase 3 data in a press release, and the findings haven’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

The study was jointly conducted by Regeneron and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and includes fuller results than interim findings the company released in January.

REGEN-COV is currently authorized to treat people infected with Covid-19 who have mild to moderate symptoms and are at high risk of developing severe disease because of factors including age or underlying conditions such as obesity.

In studies, the drug reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by about 70%.

The newest prevention study enrolled about 1,500 people living with someone recently diagnosed with Covid-19. They were randomly assigned to receive shots of the Regeneron drug or a placebo.

After one month, 1.5% of volunteers receiving REGEN-COV had symptomatic Covid-19 infections, compared with 7.8% of those who received a placebo, amounting to an 81% risk reduction, Regeneron said.

There weren’t any hospitalizations or emergency-room visits stemming from Covid-19 among volunteers taking Regeneron’s drug, compared with four volunteers in the placebo group, according to the company.

The antibody drug also appeared to help speed recovery among those who contracted Covid-19 symptoms. Volunteers who received the drug had symptoms for an average of 1.2 weeks, compared with an average of 3.2 weeks in the placebo group, the company said.

Regeneron didn’t disclose how many volunteers tested positive for Covid-19 without showing symptoms but plans to in the future, a company spokeswoman said.

REGEN-COV is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies, molecules that mimic the antibodies naturally produced by the immune system to fight viruses and bacteria.

The FDA first cleared use of the drug in November under an emergency-use authorization, which a medication to be prescribed before it has completed the complete battery of testing required for a full approval.

Merger of world’s 2 largest water and waste groups after long-running takeover battle reshapes market sector

Veolia has struck a deal to buy its arch-rival Suez, reshaping the water and waste market and putting an end to one of France’s hardest-fought takeover battles in years.

After months of bitter conflict as Suez struggled to stay independent, the world’s two largest waste and water groups said on Monday they had agreed a deal at €20.50 a share — a figure that values Suez’s equity at close to €13bn, according to Veolia.

Suez shares were up 7.5 per cent to €19.80 by mid-morning in Paris, while Veolia rose almost 3 per cent. 

The two groups have been in public battle since August, when Veolia bought 29.9 per cent of Suez at €18 a share from France’s Engie and said it wanted to launch a full bid for its rival. Engie will get a top-up on the price it received, according to people familiar with the matter.

As Suez fought the takeover it refused to engage, threw up legal blocks, threatened to sell off assets and put together an alternative offer. Eventually the bid went fully hostile in February. 

“I am particularly pleased to announce today the conclusion of an agreement between Suez and Veolia that will enable the construction of the world champion of ecological transformation,” Antoine Frérot, Veolia chief executive, said on Monday.

The combined entity will have €37bn of revenues. The two groups have agreed to enter into definitive merger agreements by May 14.

A “new Suez” will be carved out, “forming a coherent and sustainable group . . . with revenues of around €7bn”. It will be made up of water and waste operations in France as well as some international assets, including in Italy, Africa and India.

Suez and Veolia had flirted with an agreement already, when Frérot put an expanded carve-out of Suez’s French water and waste business on the table.

The new and smaller Suez, which will have an employee shareholder base capped at 10 per cent, will be bought by private equity groups Ardian, GIP and Meridiam as well as French state investment bank Caisse des Dépôts. All were allied with Suez or Veolia during the takeover war. 

The majority of the shareholders of the new Suez will be French, according to the companies. The assets involved would be sold by Veolia for a price “coherent” with the overall deal, Frérot said.

The agreement will also deactivate a poison pill put in place by Suez — a Dutch foundation to hold its French water assets whose board members would have veto rights over any disposal — and terminate an agreed sale of Australian assets deemed strategic by Veolia. 

Both the foundation and the asset sales were designed to put pressure on Veolia to find an agreement. Suez was also under pressure to reach a deal as Veolia was threatening to vote out its board at this summer’s shareholders’ meeting.

Swedish payments company is latest fintech to signal intention to list on public markets

Swedish payments company Trustly has become the latest fintech start-up to announce its intention to list on the stock market, saying on Monday that it was seeking a valuation of about $9bn.

Trustly is seeking to list on Nasdaq in Stockholm in the coming weeks and is aiming to raise about SKr8bn ($930m) in fresh capital while its majority shareholder — Swedish private equity company Nordic Capital — will sell down its stake.

People familiar with the listing said it was targeting a valuation of about SKr70bn-SKr75bn ($8.2bn-$8.8bn) after weeks of discussions with potential investors.

“This is a way to make sure the company can stay independent. The company has reached the size where it started to become too big for a private environment,” chair Johan Tjarnberg told the Financial Times.

The announcement comes as investor interest in payments groups is surging, with Stripe in the US and Sweden’s Klarna, both unlisted, tripling their valuations in recent weeks.

Unlike most payment start-ups such as Klarna and Stripe that rely on card networks, Trustly has built up its own platform allowing consumers to pay directly from their bank accounts. It claims that by cutting out intermediaries such as card issuers and banks, it can reduce costs for merchants by up to a half.

Trustly, founded in 2008 and in which Nordic Capital bought a majority stake in 2018 at a €700m valuation, is touting itself as one of Europe’s fastest growing companies in terms of revenues and a start-up with solid profitability.

Tjarnberg said it planned to have a “rule of 80” for the next five years, under which the sum of its annual net revenue growth, and its underlying operating profit margin — both in percentage terms — would be more than 80 per cent.

Last year, Trustly processed $21bn of transactions and had revenues of SKr2bn, 40 per cent higher than in 2019. Its underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation were SKr907m, given an adjusted ebitda margin of 46 per cent.

Chief executive Oscar Berglund told the FT there was considerable interest from younger consumers who did not want to pay with credit cards or buy now, pay later services such as Klarna.

He dismissed concerns that the EU’s move towards open banking — which opens up consumer accounts across the continent — would hurt Trustly, arguing that it had a proven platform and business model.

Tjarnberg, whose own payments start-up Bambora was sold by Nordic Capital to Ingenico for €1.5bn four years ago, said he had never seen such interest in the industry before. “There is a huge appetite for this account-to-account space . . . This is a way to control your own destiny,” he added.

Trustly is present throughout Europe but its biggest market will soon be the US, where it is enjoying huge growth. It said it would use the IPO proceeds to repay its credit facilities and redeem its outstanding preference shares.

Carnegie, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan are joint global co-ordinators while eight other banks are joint bookrunners.