Mittal buys one more tony property

Indian-origin steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal has bought his third property for £70 million in Kensington Palace Gardens, London’s most expensive street nicknamed ‘Billionaire’s Row’. Vijay Dutt reports.

Indian-origin steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal has bought his third property for £70 million (about Rs 591.64 crore) in Kensington Palace Gardens, London’s most expensive street nicknamed ‘Billionaire’s Row’.

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Britain’s richest man, whose fortune is estimated at £27 billion (approximately Rs 230 lakh crore), already owns two large homes in the tree-lined half-mile private street, where Princess Diana spent her last years.

Mittal’s latest purchase of the former embassy of the Philippines from hedge fund tycoon Noam Gottesman reportedly for his daughter Vanisha comes a month after he bought Britain’s most expensive house for £117 million (about Rs 988.88 crore) for his son Aditya.

Mittal, who was named as the world’s fourth wealthiest person by Forbes Magazine in March, lives in a 55,000 sq ft home in Kensington Palace Gardens which he bought for £57 million (approximately Rs 481.76 crore) from Formula One tycoon Ernie Ecclestone four years ago. The property is three times as big as his latest purchase.

The combined value of the three properties, which are a few hundred yards apart in Kensington Palace Gardens, is said to be an astonishing £440 million (approximately Rs 3,718.88 crore). But as his new purchase still requires a great deal of work, the value of his properties could go up by a few more millions.

“Bearing in mind that the Mittals have carried substantial improvements to their main home, which is probably the largest private house in central London after Buckingham Palace, I would put its current value close to £250 million (about Rs 2113 crore),” Noel De Keyzer, director at Savills, said.