14 of 2014: Buck up, folks
2014 ‘the year of the splurge’
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-12-31 02:00 GMT
Hyderabad: It would be right to call 2014 ‘the year of the splurge’. From cars to weddings, the rich didn’t spare a penny to send their social profiles soaring
The Hinduja Group recently bought the historic Old War Office building in London for a sum with unknown zeroes. The building boasts of 1,100 rooms and hopefully, a map!
£1.75 million British steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal might soon have a hill named after him. It has been reported that Mittal recently bid on the iconic 2,850 ft-high Blencathra peak in the Lake District region of Cumbria, England.
It was put on sale by a very desperate Hugh Lowther, Earl of Lonsdale, in May for an asking price of just £1.75 million.
Rs 10 crore car Shah Rukh Khan wants Gauri Khan safe now! The actor bought the wife an armoured Merc on her b’day and people claim it’s built like a tank!
Rolling in! Priyanka Chopra became the first actress to splurge on a Rolls Royce. Well, drive safe!
A Rs 54 crore holiday home The Bachchans are known for their love for fast, luxury cars. It was widely reported that Big B had gifted his son Abhishek a swanky Bentley on the latter’s 31st birthday and a holiday home in Dubai estimated at a whopping Rs 54 crore. Abhishek better be a total daddy’s boy in 2015!
Rs 180-crore villa in Mumbai Glamis Villa, a 11,000 sft mansion, was bought for Rs 180 crore by M.P. Aggarwal, of Sajjan India Ltd. This property was once the summer seat of Hari Singh, Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, and was earlier owned by the Fazalbhoy family.
Rs 39,31,627 The Ravi Verma painting saree by Chennai Silks is currently world’s most expensive saree. Weighing around eight kg, it features reproductions of 11 paintings by the celebrated Indian artist Raja Ravi Varma and comes studded with gold, diamond, platinum, silver, ruby, emerald, yellow sapphire and lots more.
This sari was apparently designed on the request of a Kuwait-based businessman.
The big shaadi Indian weddings are all about the show-sha. When Pankaj Malani, son of Unique Industrial Products owner and CEO, Jugal Malani, wed Avnie in Las Vegas, it reportedly cost the families millions in dollars. The couple chose the grand Cosmopolitan Hotel at the Bellagio, a 9-tier cake and an elephant!
Rs 17.37 crore Tyeb Mehta painting A buyer from New York grabbed the famed painting by modern Indian artist Tyeb Mehta for $2.8 million ('17.37 crore) at a Christie’s auction in Mumbai. Mehta’s untitled 1999 painting, with the central figure of a falling bull, was sold to the private bidder at the auction beating pre-sale estimates between $1.3 million and $1.9 million (Rs 8 to Rs 12 crore).
80 crore Ranjan Pai Billionaire Ranjan Pai, the 41-year-old promoter of Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG), bought one of the most expensive office-space purchases in recent times, setting a new benchmark. The billionaire bought over 24,000 sft of real estate on the top-most floor 15th of a five-star hotel. He reportedly paid Rs 32,000 per sft, which is about Rs 80 crore.
PK has a Rs 10 crore car Aamir Khan can’t resist a fancy set of wheels either. Sources claim the actor now has one of the most expensive cars in B’town. A snazzy Mercedes Benz that has ‘special protection’ to keep the prying eyes away.
That’s a whole lot of b’day moolah The Ambani family, we know, loves to live life to the fullest. Nita Ambani apparently has birthday celebrations that do cost some big bucks!
Rs 14 crore for Yuvraj Cricketer Yuvraj Singh was the most expensive buy at the IPL 7 auction bought for Rs 14 crore by Vijay Mallya’s Royal Challengers. But Mallya realised the folly soon after and released the player in December.
5oo cars, 200 flats as Diwali gifts Savji Dholakia, a diamond merchant from Surat, decided to really make Diwali a fire cracker for his employees. Nearly 500 cars and 200 flats were all given away by this boss to his employees. Quite a Diwali bonus indeed.