Ukraine’s richest man bought Monaco flat for record 471 million euros

[PARIS] Billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man, bought a vast, five-floor luxury apartment in Monaco’s most prestigious new development for an eye-popping 471 million euros (S$704.5 million), making it one of the biggest single home transactions in history.

The 21-room waterfront property, acquired by the businessman’s holding company, is located in the principality’s Mareterra district. The new area, built on reclaimed land, was inaugurated by Prince Albert II in 2024 and has drawn ultra-rich investors from around the world.

Situated in the flagship “Le Renzo” building, the flat stretches over about 2,500 square metres (27,000 square feet), not counting balconies and terraces looking out over the Mediterranean Sea. It also has a private swimming pool, jacuzzi and comes with at least eight parking spots.

Details of the sale, which was finalised in 2024, come from the principality’s property records, as well as a stash of emails and preliminary deeds reviewed by Bloomberg Businessweek from Distributed Denial of Secrets, a nonprofit that preserves hacked and leaked materials believed to be in the public interest.

Akhmetov’s holding company, System Capital Management, or SCM, confirmed it it had made an acquisition in the development, though declined to provide details about the property or price.

“SCM’s international investment portfolio has included a standalone premium real estate portfolio for over ten years, as has been publicly stated on multiple occasions,” it said in a statement. “Among its assets is the ‘Le Renzo’ project, in which we made an investment on the primary market in 2021.”

The reported price would make it the biggest known home sale in history, outstripping the recent sale of developer Nick Candy’s Chelsea mansion for more than US$350 million or the sale of a New York penthouse apartment to hedge fund manager Ken Griffin for about US$240 million.

Perched on a rocky outcrop between France and Italy, Monaco has long been the priciest real-estate market in the world because of its small size and tax haven status. The Mareterra development was built up over a decade on land reclaimed from the sea and includes 114 luxury villas, townhouses and apartments set around gardens, a harbour and public promenade.

Akhmetov’s purchase agreement in the principality came just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The war subsequently created upheaval within his business empire including attacks on energy assets in his home country.

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The tycoon has a net worth of more than US$7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His fortune is rooted in SCM, Ukraine’s largest industrial conglomerate with investments in metallurgy, mining and energy, in addition to property.

Akhmetov has also been associated with a string of other ultra high-end property acquisitions in the past, including the 2019 purchase for €200 million of the historic Villa Les Cèdres on the French Riviera. The sprawling estate in the exclusive Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat was once owned by King Leopold II of Belgium.

In 2011, Akhmetov also reportedly bought a penthouse in London’s prestigious One Hyde Park development opposite the Harrods department store in Knightsbridge.

Mareterra properties have sold for prices surpassing the symbolic 100,000 euros a square metre, according to local property agents, who asked not to be named because the details are not public. One three-bedroom property is currently on the market for about 76 million euros. There are also rental listings for four and five-room apartments for 150,000 euros a month.

Official statistics show that the Larvotto district where Mareterra is located has become the principality’s most expensive in terms of estimated selling prices per square metre. The data doesn’t break out prices for properties in the development and these are not generally listed on broker websites.

“Monaco remains one of the world’s most exclusive and resilient residential markets,” Savills said in a report published in March, noting that it is “shaped by structural scarcity and sustained high international demand”. BLOOMBERG