by THO
Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India that manufactures the Covishield vaccine, has closed a deal to buy London’s most expensive house of the year worth approximately ₹1446 crore, according to a report in Financial Times.
He has agreed to pay the amount for a 25,000 square foot Mayfair mansion. Aberconway House is a 1920s home near Hyde Park which will change hands after a sale was agreed by Dominika Kulczyk, daughter of the late businessman Jan Kulczyk, who was Poland’s richest man, the report said.
The property will be acquired by Serum Life Sciences, a UK subsidiary of the Poonawalla family’s Serum Institute of India, Financial Times quoted people familiar with the transaction as saying.
The house is a red-brick structure and is named for Henry Duncan McLaren, Baron Aberconway, an industrialist who built the Grosvenor Square mansion, the report said.
“It is a company guest house which is useful for hosting events and donors tech partners and it has helped Serum Group in accessing global opportunities that were not possible to do from India,” sources confirmed to CNBC.
Also read: Niraj Bajaj buys triplex at Walkeshwar for ₹252.50 cr
With its staggering price of £138 million, this deal will make Aberconway House the second-most expensive home ever sold in London. The most expensive deal was transacted in January 2020 with 2-8a Rutland Gate was sold for a record-breaking £210 million.
The FT report quoted agents as saying that the next largest sale of 2023 was the £113mn purchase of Hanover Lodge. Essar Group billionaire Ravi Ruia’s family office had bought the mansion in Regent’s Park, which had been linked to Russian property investor Andrey Goncharenko, the report said.
