The luxury mansion overlooking Hyde Park was sold for £210m in 2020
(Picture: handout)Ultra-wealthy overseas investors are circling London’s most expensive home for sale, hoping to take advantage of the slumping pound, Homes & Property has been told.
Interest in the mega-mansion, which last sold for a record £210 million in 2020, is said to have surged in the past fortnight, largely from US and Middle East-based investors, who have seen their buying power boosted by sterling’s tumble.
A dollar was worth 89p the day before Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax-slashing September mini-Budget, but this rose to 93p just a few days later as markets reacted to fears over government borrowing. This would save a dollar buyer £8.4 million on a £210 million home.
This has led to a rush of interest from overseas investors, according to some industry insiders.
The 20-bedroom mega-mansion, overlooking Hyde Park, sold two-and-a-half years ago to a private buyer reported by the Financial Times to be Hui Ka Yan, founder of Chinese developer giant Evergrande and once China’s richest man.
Now, with Evergrande stricken by China’s property crisis, it is understood that the home is back on the market.
The property has been described as one of London’s seven “private palaces” and is being sold with planning permission.
Designs from architects Squire and Partners, granted consent by Westminster council in July 2021, would see the top three floors of the building demolished and rebuilt. A fifth-floor terrace would be created, a lower basement level extended and a glazed dome added to the roof.
Planning documents describe the existing building — created from a row of former townhouses by former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri in the Eighties — as “semi-derelict”.
It is understood no interior works have taken place in the 17 years since Hariri was killed in Beirut and the mansion passed to Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The former crown prince of Saudi Arabia died in 2011 and the home is not thought to have been lived in since.
The 45-room property, which features an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a cinema at basement level, was sold by the late sultan’s estate in 2020.
While in need of a major interior overhaul, the property boasts 62,000 sq ft of living space and a number of grand bedrooms that open on to double bathrooms and dressing rooms, as well as private living areas.
Three lifts serve the six-storey home, while staff quarters are already in place on the lower-ground floor.
Its rich history and Knightsbridge location make it a prime spot for buyers looking for a London base.
