After a contentious divorce, the typical American man of a certain age might buy a motorcycle or a convertible – or maybe start dating a younger more attractive woman. But Citadel founder Ken Griffin isn’t your typical American man.
Days after reports about Griffin’s purchase of a $122 million mansion – 3 Carlton Gardens -near Buckingham Palace (a famous mansion that was once home to Charles de Gaulle) – one of the most expensive purchases in the history of UK real estate – surfaced in the Guardian, the billionaire HFT pioneer’s globe-trotting record-smashing luxury real-estate buying spree continued on Wednesday when he closed on a deal to buy the most expensive home ever sold in the US.
Griffin signed a contract to buy the Central Park apartment in 2015. The seller and developer was Vornado Realty Trust, which was represented by Deborah Kern of the Corcoran Group. Griffin was represented by Tal and Oren Alexander of the Alexander team at Douglas Elliman.
220 Central Park South
According to CNBC, Griffin paid $238 million for a New York penthouse overlooking Central Park. The apartment covers four floors of the new 79-story condo tower known as 220 Central Park South, and is around 24,000 square feet. The deal eclipsed the previous record, the $147 million paid by hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein for an estate in East Hampton back in 2014. The purchase is undoubtedly a boon for the NYC high-end real estate market, which has been struggling with its worst sales slump in years.
The purchase comes as Citadel has signed a lease to become the anchor tenant in a skyscraper at 425 Park Avenue, eight-tenths of a mile from Griffin’s new apartment (vertical travel not included). Griffin reportedly bought the place because he needed somewhere to stay when in town.
3 Carlton Gardens
With his latest purchase, Griffin has totaled $700 million in high-profile real-estate purchases over the past few years, including the most expensive properties ever sold in Chicago and Miami. He spent more than $200 million to buy land in Palm Beach for a home he plans to build there.
According to the Wall Street Journal, some believe Griffin’s latest deal could be one of the most expensive real-estate transactions ever closed in the world, rivaling records set in Hong Kong and Monte Carlo. Per WSJ, the most expensive piece of property ever sold was the sale of a home at the Peak, one of Hong Kong’s priciest neighborhoods, which sold for $361 million in 2017.
See? Frontrunning – sorry, HFT – does pay.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HuiFmN Tyler Durden