Russian billionaire buys £50m flat in central London with Arab neighbors
Well-known Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev, whom the authorities of Western countries periodically promise to include in the sanctions lists, has acquired an elite apartment in London, Octagon noted. Among his neighbors are immigrants from Russia and business internationals – Chinese and Arab billionaires. The names of Rybolovlev and two dozen other buyers of apartments in a prestigious residential complex were disclosed at the end of January 2022.
They are listed as directors of Twenty Grosvenor Square Management Company Limited (a sort of homeowners’ association). Some of the “directors” in the address bar indicate the specific numbers of apartments in a residential complex near Grosvenor Square – the second largest garden area in central London.
The new residential complex is a historic building, its reconstruction took place in 2016–2019. The cost of 37 apartments (the area of 312-531 “square”) ranges from 17 to 50 million pounds. According to information on British specialized portals (rightmove.co.uk, themovemarket.com), buyers paid 50 million pounds (about 5 billion rubles) for penthouses. It is possible that Rybolovlev bought one of them. Twenty Grosvenor Square is not the most expensive residential complex in London, One Hyde Park, where the penthouse cost £175 million, is considered to be one.
The name of Dmitry Rybolovlev appears on the list of owners of apartments in an elite residential complex next to London’s Grosvenor Square.
The Four Seasons hotel chain participated in the work on the project, and clients were promised an appropriate set of services, a cinema hall, a 25-meter swimming pool, as well as “embassy-level” security.
Rybolovlev’s investments in English houses and apartments have not been previously reported, although he is known as an investor in real estate, in particular in New York penthouses. The entrepreneur also acquired individual islands in Greece. In 2008, he bought a $95 million Florida estate from future US President Donald Trump, netting him $50 million over four years. Western media later relied on this fact, discussing the strange intersections of the routes of Rybolovlev, Trump and his relatives before the US presidential election in 2016.
Now the business card of the businessman is the Monaco football club, and there is little that connects him with Russia.
He escaped prosecution for an accident at Uralkali’s Berezniki mine and sold shares in Uralkali and Silvinit for about $6 billion 12 years ago.
The entrepreneur spent part of the proceeds on a 10% stake in the Bank of Cyprus, thanks to which he received Cypriot citizenship (it is also indicated in the documents of the British corporate register). Sponsors films by Leonid Parfenov.
In the 2010s, Rybolovlev invested money (about $2 billion) in painting through the art dealer Yves Bouvier. Also, the billionaire was marked by a long divorce process, which lasted seven years and cost him $604 million and two houses in Switzerland. The divorce may have cost the businessman less than the conflict with the Bouvier dealer: Rybolovlev accused him of inflating prices for a total of $ 1 billion, but he did not achieve anything in the courts of Switzerland and Monaco. However, some investments in painting were successful: in 2013, he bought the painting by Leonardo da Vinci “The Savior of the World” from the same Bouvier for $127 million, and in 2017 he sold it for $450 million. Rybolovlev also sold Trump’s estate at a profit 13 million dollars. In addition, his successful deal for the sale of football player Kylian Mbappe to the Paris Saint-Germain club for 160 million euros is known.
The Twenty Grosvenor Square project was created with the participation of the Four Seasons luxury hotel chain.
Photo: Twenty Grosvenor Square official website
Among Rybolovlev’s neighbors in the new elite residential complex is Nikolai Bukhantsov, who was a member of the board of Rosneft before Igor Sechin, Slavneft joined the company, as well as the first deputy head of the administration of the governor of St. Petersburg. In the “Citizenship” column, Bukhantsov indicated Bulgaria (in the declaration of 2011, an apartment in the Czech Republic was listed).
Britons Stephanie Czerny and Anna Czerny also live next door to a Russian businessman. Perhaps this is the ex-wife and daughter of a crime boss named Mikhail Chernoy (he appears in British documents as Michael Cherney). In the past, Chernoy is the “aluminum king of Russia”, in the 2000s he sued Oleg Deripaska in London over the division of Rusal.
48-year-old Svetlana Metkina, who introduced herself to the British registrar as an actress, stands out in the list of members of the HOA. Svetlana is the daughter of ex-State Duma deputy Alexander Metkin.
In the early 1990s, she married Belgian entrepreneur Michel Litvak and was commonly referred to in the credits as Lana Litvak.
It is difficult to recognize Tatyana Igorevna Kim, born in 1983 (obtained citizenship of Malta in 2018) and Briton Vladimir Chernyaev, born in 1963, among residents from the CIS.
There are also a few Americans: Damien Lamendola (aviation industry), Mark Nunnally (manager of Bain Capital), Sandra Edgerly (luxury real estate). But most of the new homeowners are wealthy from developing countries: Chinese billionaire Xu Hang (Mindray medical equipment); Ayush Jatiya, son of Indian food service businessman Amit Jatiya; bearer of the surname of the richest Indian family Zubin Bharti Mittal; financier Emad Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Bahar and transport tycoon Marwan Marzouk Buday from Kuwait; one of the richest people in Chile, Alvaro José Saye Bendek; Egyptian tourism businessman Hamed El Chiati Mohamed Ali El Chiati, whose assets were seized by Canada; tycoon from Bangladesh Ahmed Shayan Fazlur Rahman and others.
Ilya Shumanov, a lawyer, an expert in the field of openness of information, the CEO of Transparency International Russia (the organization is recognized as a foreign agent), notes that the disclosure of the names of members of an elite HOA is in line with the trend towards increasing transparency in British companies:
