Rinat Akhmetov is One Hyde Park penthouse owner
Wednesday, 20 April 2011 5:18 PM
The identity of the buyer of the UK’s most expensive apartment – the penthouse at One Hyde Park – has been revealed as Ukrainian entrepreneur Rinat Akhmetov.
Until yesterday, all that was publicly known was the fact that someone had bought the duplex penthouse and the single-storey apartment beneath it for £136.4 million using funds from an offshore account, and that a law firm based in Russia and Ukraine had been involved.
But now we know that the owner of all that space – which will reportedly be given a £60 million interior makeover – is Akhmetov, son of a coal miner turned world’s 148th richest man.
At the relatively tender age of 44, Rinat Akhmetov has already turned his hand to a number of enterprises: coal-trading, the energy industry, the media and football club ownership to name but a few. Forbes recently estimated his fortune to be around £10 billion.
Though the father-of-two is reported to have donated £18 million to charity in one year alone, his reputation isn’t without blemish, with political opponents having accused him of mafia involvement.
The property that Rinat Akhmetov has bought is within One Hyde Park, which opened in January and is said to be the world’s most expensive residential property development.
Akhmetov’s ownership of the three-floor pad will earn him access to all the amenities that the building has to offer: private cinema, 21-metre swimming pool, golf simulator, wine cellar (apparently he has been assigned storage spaces 16 and 17) and the neighbouring Mandarin Oriental’s concierge service.
Although apartments at One Hyde Park are widely touted as costing £6,000 per square foot, the fact that Akhmetov invested in a whopping 25,000sq feet (that’s 16 times the size of the average three-bed home) appears to have earned him a discount: the Ukrainian paid a comparatively cheap £5,456 per square foot.
It just goes to show – even billionaires love a bargain.
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