Archive for August, 2009

The world’s most powerful, and most secretive, investment bank

Number 85 Broad Street, a dull, rust-coloured office block in lower Manhattan, doesn’t look like a place to stop and stare, and that’s just the way the people who work there like it. The men and women who arrive in the watery dawn sunshine, dressed in Wall Street black, clutching black briefcases and BlackBerrys, are [...]

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

£45 milion spent on a Dalham Hall mansion by rich Sheikh

A whopping sum of £45million has been spent on a country estate by one of the world’s richest men, in spite of losing £4billion during the recession. The up grade II-listed Dalham Hall was snapped by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai. The 18th century house was once owned by Cecil Rhodes, [...]

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Laurence Graff pays £2.5 million a record price for gemstone at auction

Geneva: A vivid blue 3.7 carat diamond ring, right, sold for just under $5 million (£2.5 million) at auction, becoming the priciest gemstone per carat, Sotheby’s said.
The oval-shaped stone – about the size of a pistachio shell – fetched $1.33 million per carat, edging out a similar blue diamond that sold last year in Hong [...]

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

One less tax haven to stash those billions in Liechtenstein

On the face of it, the Treasury’s deal with Liechtenstein is a coup. The Alpine principality is in the premier league of the world’s tax havens. Monaco may be flashier and sunnier, Jersey and Guernsey may be close to home, but for sheer tight-lipped secrecy, Liechtenstein has had few equals.
Hundreds of billions of pounds, euros [...]

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

A License Plate “1D” fetches £352,411 record price at auction

A Lebanese property developer living in England has paid £352,411 pounds (US$509,768) for license plate number “1D”, a new record in the world of collectible British license plates. At an auction held by the DVLA, the agency which regulates British vehicle registration, the highly-coveted plate sold for a total of 285,000 pounds, but fees and [...]

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

The Queen of England has fallen to 12th place on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest royals

The Queen of England – she has fallen to 12th place on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest royals. The value of her London residence, Buckingham Palace, had fallen by a whopping $100 million thanks to declining property values.
Now Elizabeth II is suffering the added indignity of languishing on the rich list, as her measly [...]

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

Billionaire Sheikh pays £250,000 for Household Cavalry to fly to Abu Dhabi

While speculation seems to continue regarding the spending habits of the uber-rich in these recessionary times, there’s still a strata of the society who is spending like there’s no tomorrow! The latest flashy spending comes from a billionaire Arab sheikh Mansoor Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who has reportedly paid £250,000 ($377,490) to fly 30 members [...]

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

The World’s Five Longest Super Yachts

Yachts have captured the imagination of people the world over and nothing signals luxury more than the ultimate floating home. The term luxury yacht encompasses any privately owned vessel that is professionally crewed and was coined at the beginning of the 20th century when yachting for pleasure became a reality for many.
Classifying yachts into a [...]

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

One £200 million super-yacht with three Monet paintings onboard

This $400 million super-yacht was built for a Russian oligarch, Andrey Melnichenko, 37, who is worth $9.2 billion and was ranked 172 on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people. There is a large master suite as well as six luxury cabins for up to 14 guests and enough room for 42 crew members. [...]

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

Threat to offshore accounts as taxman does deal with Liechtenstein

Some of the richest people in the UK will find out today if the taxman will be allowed access to details of their secret offshore accounts. The tax courts will rule on whether HM Revenue and Customs can demand information from accounts held by an estimated 500,000 Britons at 300 foreign banks with branches in [...]

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Ten facts on tiny principality of Liechtenstein

1. The Principality of Liechtenstein is one of only two countries in the world that are doubly landlocked — that is surrounded by other countries that are also landlocked — which means that its inhabitants have to cross at least two borders before reaching the coast. The other such country is [...]

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Harrods by Appointment – Services only for the super Rich

Mohamed Al Fayed’s Knightsbridge store introduces a new ‘focus’ on personal service — to ramp up the top-end shopping experience Here’s a quick question for well-heeled brides-to-be and their harried mothers. What do you do if in order to accommodate all your friends and respect your cultural and family traditions you need to hold wedding [...]

Monday, August 3rd, 2009