Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has sold a mansion block in Mayfair to another member of the ruling family in a deal The National understands to be worth £39 million.
Sheikh Mohammed sold the Grade II-listed building to a fellow Qatari royal in October, in one of London’s most expensive home deals in the past year.
The National understands the property, at Balfour Place, was converted into flats in 1991. The block was originally bought by the Qatari Prime Minister in 2021, for a sum close to the asking price at the time of about £45 million.
The luxury property deal was understood to have been negotiated directly between the fellow royals.
The Qatari government's media office did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Sheikh Mohammed, a familiar face on the diplomatic circuit, was appointed Prime Minister of the gas-rich Gulf state last year, while continuing as Foreign Minister.
He has played an important role in discussions between Qatar and European countries about the supply of natural gas after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended energy markets.
The high-end property market in the UK capital has been relatively strong even as global central banks have raised interest rates and Britain prepares to toughen its tax rules for rich foreigners.
Still, some sellers have had to lower their ambitions when it comes to price.
British billionaire Bobby Arora sold a luxury townhouse in Belgravia – a neighbouring district to Mayfair – for £23.5 million at the end of last year, at a discount of roughly 30 per cent of the price paid in 2013.
In January, sold properties across London’s most prestigious districts dipped below 90 per cent of their asking prices for the first time since early 2019, according to researcher LonRes.
Qatari elites have snapped up so much real estate in Mayfair over the years that the area has been nicknamed “Little Doha” by some estate agents.
The former US embassy in the area is being redeveloped into a luxury hotel and apartments by Qatari Diar.
Abdulhadi Mana Al Hajri, owner of the Ritz Hotel and brother-in-law of Qatar’s Emir, bought a £37.5 million townhouse a short walk from Sheikh Mohammed’s former home last year.
In 2023, Mayfair was one of the most popular neighbourhoods for £5 million-plus deals in London, making up 8 per cent of these transactions, according to broker Savills Plc.
But some property owners – including other Qatari royals and the Al Khayyat family, which owns large parts of industry in the Gulf state – have considered selling mansions in London over the past 12 months.
UAE buyers featured in the top bracket of those purchasing prime central London property last year, according to 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.
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THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Family: Wife Hanan Ahmed and their three children, Marrah (23), Tibijan (19), Amon (13)
Favourite dessert: Umm Ali with dark camel milk chocolate flakes
Favourite hobby: Football
Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk
Building boom turning to bust as Turkey's economy slows
Deep in a provincial region of northwestern Turkey, it looks like a mirage - hundreds of luxury houses built in neat rows, their pointed towers somewhere between French chateau and Disney castle.
Meant to provide luxurious accommodations for foreign buyers, the houses are however standing empty in what is anything but a fairytale for their investors.
The ambitious development has been hit by regional turmoil as well as the slump in the Turkish construction industry - a key sector - as the country's economy heads towards what could be a hard landing in an intensifying downturn.
After a long period of solid growth, Turkey's economy contracted 1.1 per cent in the third quarter, and many economists expect it will enter into recession this year.
The country has been hit by high inflation and a currency crisis in August. The lira lost 28 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2018 and markets are still unconvinced by the readiness of the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to tackle underlying economic issues.
The villas close to the town centre of Mudurnu in the Bolu region are intended to resemble European architecture and are part of the Sarot Group's Burj Al Babas project.
But the development of 732 villas and a shopping centre - which began in 2014 - is now in limbo as Sarot Group has sought bankruptcy protection.
It is one of hundreds of Turkish companies that have done so as they seek cover from creditors and to restructure their debts.
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Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
What is the Supreme Petroleum Council?
The Abu Dhabi Supreme Petroleum Council was established in 1988 and is the highest governing body in Abu Dhabi’s oil and gas industry. The council formulates, oversees and executes the emirate’s petroleum-related policies. It also approves the allocation of capital spending across state-owned Adnoc’s upstream, downstream and midstream operations and functions as the company’s board of directors. The SPC’s mandate is also required for auctioning oil and gas concessions in Abu Dhabi and for awarding blocks to international oil companies. The council is chaired by Sheikh Khalifa, the President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi while Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, is the vice chairman.
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
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