UAE buyers featured in the top bracket of those purchasing prime central London property last year, according to latest research that showed the market topped £1 billion in 2023.
A report from super-prime property agent Beauchamp Estates found there were 54 sales of homes each worth more than £15 million ($18.9 million), amounting to £1.3 billion, sold in central London in the period.
About 60 per cent of them were bought by people from the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and China, who together purchased about £780 million worth of luxury property in the UK capital.
“Buoyant oil and gas prices and booming domestic property markets have generated huge cash reserves in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Dubai and [those living there] have chosen to invest a significant chunk of these revenues in London super-prime residential property,” said Gary Hersham, founding director of Beauchamp Estates.
“The Middle East and American buyers have made their purchases in London’s so-called ‘platinum triangle’ – Mayfair, Belgravia and Knightsbridge – which is why these three addresses have been where the most £15 million-plus deals have taken place in 2023.”
The super-prime sales included a Mayfair penthouse, which was bought by a businessman from Abu Dhabi in a deal worth £30.45 million. The anonymous buyer purchased three properties, including a 5,818 sq ft duplex penthouse with roof garden, in Greybrook House, a Grade II listed Art Deco-style building in Brook Street to use as a London base.
It was one of 19 apartments sold worth more than £15 million last year in areas including Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park and Whitehall, totalling almost £385 million, up from only eight sales worth £181 million in 2022. They averaged 4,894 sq ft in size, costing an average of £4,306 per sq ft.
The rise in sales of super-prime apartments was fuelled by concerns about personal security and privacy and a desire for five-star hotel style amenities, Beauchamp said.
Sales of houses and mansions priced at more than £15 million made up the majority of properties sold in the price bracket. The figure was down almost 15 per cent in 2023, with 35 sold in the period, compared to 41 in 2022. But the value and size were bigger, worth almost £925 million, compared to £876 million of sales the previous year. They were on average 8,826 sq ft in size, almost 480 sq ft larger than the equivalent 2022 figure, due to a rise in homes bought for personal use.
Belgravia was the most popular area for super-prime sales in central London, accounting for a quarter of all deals valued at more than £15 million. Other sought-after locations were Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Kensington, Chelsea, Hyde Park and Whitehall, as well as Hampstead, Notting Hill, St John’s Wood, Chelsea, Regent’s Park and Richmond.
About 70 per cent of deals worth £15 million or more in 2023 were made using cash, up from 60 per cent in 2021, due to rising interest rates and a squeeze in bank lending.
Buyers paid on average 5.6 per cent less than the asking price and the busiest periods of sales in both 2022 and 2023 was March to April and October to December, respectively.
The UK's 10 most expensive streets - in pictures
Recent research by Halifax found Grosvenor Square in London's Mayfair is the UK's most expensive street.
The UK’s 10 most expensive streets are all in the capital, with an average price tag of more than £14.5 million, the bank said.
Close competitors to Grosvenor Square in terms of price include Clarendon Road in Notting Hill and Knightsbridge Road.
Both areas have average property prices around the £20 million mark.
Homes in the priciest streets are about 72 times more expensive than the average UK home, which stands at £283,615.
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Men from Barca's class of 99
Crystal Palace - Frank de Boer
Everton - Ronald Koeman
Manchester City - Pep Guardiola
Manchester United - Jose Mourinho
Southampton - Mauricio Pellegrino
MATCH INFO
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Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
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Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
Most F1 world titles
7 — Michael Schumacher (1994, ’95, 2000, ’01 ’02, ’03, ’04)
7 — Lewis Hamilton (2008, ’14,’15, ’17, ’18, ’19, ’20)
5 — Juan Manuel Fangio (1951, ’54, ’55, ’56, ’57)
4 — Alain Prost (1985, ’86, ’89, ’93)
4 — Sebastian Vettel (2010, ’11, ’12, ’13)
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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