A company linked to the president of the United Arab Emirates has acquired a luxury mansion in one of the most fashionable areas of London for what he would probably consider pocket change: a whopping £65 million.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan acquired the Chelsea home, complete with swimming pool, cinema room and car lift, in November last year through a shell company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and based in Jersey.
The house was one of three built by a group of businessmen on the site of a former BT telephone exchange in the 2000s. MBZ, as he is often known, succeeded his late brother as president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi in 2022.
Each of the identical mansions was built with a swimming pool, cinema room and car lift, ideal for the Sheikh to live comfortably if he is in the UK capital.
But planning records suggest the sheikh already has plans to refurbish the house, after the local town council last year approved a building order to remove it and create a gym.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates (pictured with Vladimir Putin) bought a £65 million mansion in Chelsea.
The house was one of three identical mansions built in the 2000s with a swimming pool, car lift and cinema room on the site of a former telephone exchange.
MBZ, as he is often known, visited the UK in 2021, where he was photographed inspecting the Grenadier Guards.
He also visited Downing Street in December 2020, with a socially distanced visit to see then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The application was received on November 14, two weeks after the house was purchased.
MBZ could use the house during his visits to London, having visited the UK in an official capacity several times in recent years.
As Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi he visited London in 2021, where he inspected the Grenadier Guards alongside then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whom he also met in 2020 for a socially distanced visit during the pandemic.
The sensational sale was first reported by Bloomberg and since confirmed by MailOnline using Land Registry records.
The transaction was completed through a firm linked to the al Nahyan family incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, with a postal address in Jersey.
It was one of the few real estate transactions made in London for almost unthinkable sums last year, suggesting a market recovery after house prices plummeted due to higher interest rates and taxes.
The number of expensive homes changing hands for big money is at its highest level in years, with £3.4bn changing hands for the most valuable homes.
According to the Knight Frank Super-Prime Intelligence Report175 homes sold above the £10m mark in the 12 months to November 2023.
And of those, 28 transactions were for homes worth £30 million or more, on par with sales in 2013/14, the last peak in London’s super-high-end property market.
In 2015, one of the other mansions was sold for £51 million and was described as having nine bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a cinema, a Japanese water garden and an indoor swimming pool.
Chelsea was the most popular area for property purchases worth more than £5 million last year, accounting for 12 per cent of these transactions, according to brokerage Savills Plc.
And in another mega property deal last year, Indian billionaire Adar Poonawalla, also known as the “vaccine prince”, bought a mansion in Mayfair for £138 million, the most expensive property deal of 2023.
Poonawalla struck a deal with Dominika Kulczyk, daughter of Poland’s richest man, Jan Kulczyk, to buy Aberconway House, a 25,000-square-foot 1920s home near Hyde Park.
The price made the property the second most expensive home ever sold in London and the biggest transaction of the year, according to luxury property agents.
The property was acquired by Serum Life Sciences, a British affiliate of the Poonawalla family’s Serum Institute of India, people familiar with the transaction said.
The next biggest sale of 2023, according to agents, was the purchase of Hanover Lodge for £113 million. Essar Group billionaire Ravi Ruia’s family office bought the mansion in Regent’s Park, which had been linked to Russian property investor Andrey Goncharenko.
MBZ, 63, is the third son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and became crown prince of Abu Dhabi in 2004 before becoming president of the United Arab Emirates in 2022.
Under his rule, the United Arab Emirates has become a more socially liberal and pro-business country, but the former UAE Air Force pilot has also rapidly expanded the country’s military spending.
He is also perceived to rule the Emirates with an iron fist, as there are no free elections and the country lacks a free and independent media.
It ranks 145th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index, which says the government “prevents independent media outlets, both local and foreign, from thriving by tracking and persecuting dissenting voices.”
The Al Nahyans are one of the richest families in the world, with a net worth estimated at more than $300 billion.
An Abu Dhabi-backed fund, majority owned by MBZ’s brother and UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is currently involved in a deal to take over Telegraph Media Group, publishers of the Daily Telegraph.