It makes sense that a nation which has consistently ranked at the top in all global corruption rankings, produces some of the most extravagant demonstrations of stolen wealth.
Take billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, among many other assets owner of the Azovstal steel complex in Mariupol which became one of the defining clashes in the Ukraine war, and Ukraine’s richest man, who bought a vast, five-floor luxury apartment in Monaco’s most prestigious new development for an eye-popping €471 million ($554 million), making it the biggest single home transactions in history according to Bloomberg.
The 21-room waterfront property, acquired by the businessman’s holding company, is located in the principality’s Mareterra district. The new area, built on reclaimed land, was inaugurated by Prince Albert II in 2024 and has drawn ultra-rich investors from around the world.
Situated in the flagship “Le Renzo” building, the apartment stretches over about 2,500 square meters (27,000 square feet), not counting balconies and terraces looking out over the Mediterranean Sea. It also has a private swimming pool, jacuzzi and comes with at least eight parking spots.
Details of the sale, which was finalized in 2024, or about two years after Akhmetov’s country was deep in a brutal war with thousands of his countrymen dying on the front every day, come from the principality’s property records, as well as a stash of emails and preliminary deeds reviewed by Bloomberg Businessweek from Distributed Denial of Secrets, a nonprofit that preserves hacked and leaked materials believed to be in the public interest.
Akhmetov’s holding company, System Capital Management, or SCM, confirmed it it had made an acquisition in the development, though declined to provide details about the property or price.
“SCM’s international investment portfolio has included a standalone premium real estate portfolio for over ten years, as has been publicly stated on multiple occasions,” it said in a statement. “Among its assets is the ‘Le Renzo’ project, in which we made an investment on the primary market in 2021.”
Premium real estate; half a billion dollars for an apartment is a different galaxy, especially sine most of the money was likely sourced from US taxpayers. The reported price would make it the biggest known home sale in history, outstripping the recent sale of developer Nick Candy’s Chelsea mansion for more than $350 million or the sale of a New York penthouse apartment to hedge fund manager Ken Griffin for about $240 million.
Perched on a rocky outcrop between France and Italy, Monaco has long been the priciest real-estate market in the world because of its small size and tax haven status. The Mareterra development was built up over a decade on land reclaimed from the sea and includes 114 luxury villas, townhouses and apartments set around gardens, a harbor and public promenade.
Akhmetov’s purchase agreement in the principality came just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The war subsequently created upheaval within his business empire including attacks on energy assets in his home country.
Akhmetov was pivotal in arranging a lasting relationship between his employee and close friend Paul Manafort and former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovich, whose US-mediated ouster was the trigger for the eventual war between Ukraine and Russia.
The tycoon has a net worth of more than $7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His fortune is rooted in SCM, Ukraine’s largest industrial conglomerate with investments in metallurgy, mining and energy, in addition to property.
Akhmetov has also been associated with a string of other ultra high-end property acquisitions in the past, including the 2019 purchase for €200 million of the historic Villa Les Cèdres on the French Riviera. The sprawling estate in the exclusive Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat was once owned by King Leopold II of Belgium. In 2011, Akhmetov also reportedly bought a penthouse in London’s prestigious One Hyde Park development opposite the Harrods department store in Knightsbridge.
Mareterra properties have sold for prices surpassing the symbolic €100,000 a square meter, according to local property agents, who asked not to be named because the details aren’t public. One three-bedroom property is currently on the market for about €76 million. There are also rental listings for four and five-room apartments for €150,000 a month.
Official statistics show that the Larvotto district where Mareterra is located has become the principality’s most expensive in terms of estimated selling prices per square meter. The data doesn’t break out prices for properties in the development and these aren’t generally listed on broker websites.
“Monaco remains one of the world’s most exclusive and resilient residential markets,” Savills said in a report published in March, noting that it’s “shaped by structural scarcity and sustained high international demand.”