Certain people make headlines for the different things they do; and then there are people who make headlines for doing things differently. Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich belongs to the latter category. People buy houses all the time, so does Abramovich. After all, if one has money, one has to think of ways to spend them, right? And property is always the first investment that comes to mind, if you are dealing in sizeable amounts of money which, I assure you, Abramovich is. However, what has caught people’s attention is not just the property that he’s managed to snatch in London, but also the manner in which he has done it.
His latest acquisition is located in a prime London block with Harrods and Harvey Nichols just round the corner. At least he’s taken care of his girlfriend’s shopping needs! While most people look at the number of bedrooms, the square foot space covered, or the facilities like swimming pool and parking space, Abramovich has decided to change trends a little bit. He prefers buying a house that has more than one flat; in this case, he’s bought all nine of them! Of course when you are the 15th richest person in the world, you need more than one flat to keep you happy, or so I would assume.
The two stucco-fronted properties in Knightsbridge, London, have eight bedrooms. It extends three storeys underground and has all the hi-fi super rich facilities you would expect in a house like this – a swimming pool, a cinema/entertainment room, an indoor steam room and sauna, multicar garage, and staff accommodation. You know all the usual, run-of-the-mill stuff; nothing too fancy!
More than the property itself, the manner in which Abramovich bought up this building surreptitiously is worth being commended. Instead of buying the property at one go and thereby paying a hefty price, that I am sure this man of means too would have also hated to part with, he started buying the individual flats one by one, the first of which was bought in the late nineties.
So determined was he to acquire this property that he didn’t mind waiting several years until one by one they all came into the market. This way, although he still had to cough up something like £15 to £20million for this property, it is still a great deal less than its actual property.
Clever chap, I have to admit. He demonstrates the virtue of being patient. He got what he wanted and he didn’t even need to pay through his nose to get it. No wonder, he manages to stay so rich!
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