For sale: a £250mn mansion with a convoluted past
No property has embodied London’s lucrative, decades-long love affair with Saudi money quite like The Holme.
But the sprawling 40-room Regent’s Park mansion could also come to symbolise financial pressure on Saudi Arabia’s royal elite and their overseas investments.
The sale stems from a 2016 lease by Prince Khaled bin Sultan al-Saud for a private jet. At the time, his Swiss wealth advisers pulled together a list of assets to secure financing that included the crown jewel of his family fortune: The Holme.
But to collect unpaid lease payments on the jet, a company managed by London hedge fund Attestor has appointed receivers for the property, pushing the 205-year-old house back on to the market, the FT reports.
The sale offers a rare glimpse into Britain’s normally discreet high-end property market, as DD delved into last week.
A lawsuit from a second lender, Yuntian 10 Leasing Company — an Irish subsidiary of China Minsheng Bank that leased Prince Khaled his private jet via a Bermuda company — has only increased the public scrutiny.
Yuntian claims that Prince Khaled, who transferred $43mn in cash to Guernsey-registered Quendon Limited to buy The Holme back in 1991, has retained a beneficial ownership interest in the property. Therefore, it argues, the house can be used to collect unpaid lease payments on the jet.
The £250mn that The Holme may fetch would be London’s most expensive residential deal on record. His father’s estate was the previous record holder when it sold a £210mn home in London to Evergrande billionaire Hui Ka Yan in 2020.
Even so, Prince Khaled has mostly remained under the radar until recently.
After being dubbed the “Father of Saudi Arabia’s missile” for his work procuring weapons for the kingdom, the former Saudi deputy defence minister and eldest son of Saudi Arabia’s former Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud left his military career behind to pursue marine conservation.
Described by his foundation as an “avid scuba diver”, the ocean enthusiast has hosted research expeditions on his Golden Odyssey yacht. That same vessel made an appearance in the “Paradise Papers” — which listed Prince Khaled as having registered at least eight companies in Bermuda, “some of which were used to own yachts and aircraft”.
The real estate saga has also shed light on the number of investors that have backed the Guernsey vehicle Quendon over the years.
Quendon has borrowed more heavily against the house in recent years, using funds from Standard Chartered to repay a loan from Citibank, and a new loan from Attestor-managed Trinity Investments to repay that one.
An adviser to Saudi royalty said Prince Khaled “was in a very good position” financially after the 2011 death of his father, receiving the “lion’s share” of the inheritance.
But they pointed to one major catalyst as to where things went south: “his financial circumstances changed massively” around 2017, the adviser said.
That year marked a big change in the finances of Saudi royals, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman became the kingdom’s de facto ruler and began to rein in lavish state spending on princes and marginalise those not closest to him.