World’s Most Expensive Home? Another Bauble for a Saudi Prince<br />Eight Investment, according to documents from the Bermudan law firm Appleby, is “owned by members of the Saudi Royal Family,”<br />and its “wealth is derived from the King and the state.”<br />The three listed shareholders are Bader Al Asaker, who heads the crown prince’s personal foundation; Hazim Mustafa Zagzoog, the head of private affairs for King Salman;<br />and Bader Ali al-Kohail, the Saudi ambassador to the Maldives, the Indian Ocean archipelago where the crown prince hosted a series of lavish parties featuring the rapper Pitbull and the South Korean singer Psy.<br />LOUVECIENNES, France — When the Chateau Louis XIV sold for over $300 million two years ago, Fortune magazine called it “the world’s most expensive home,”<br />and Town & Country swooned over its gold-leafed fountain, marble statues and hedged labyrinth set in a 57-acre landscaped park.<br />The 2015 purchase appears to be one of several extravagant acquisitions — including a $500 million yacht<br />and a $450 million Leonardo da Vinci painting — by a prince who is leading a sweeping crackdown on corruption and self-enrichment by the Saudi elite and preaching fiscal austerity at home.<br />Those companies are owned by Eight Investment Company, a Saudi firm managed by the head of Crown Prince Mohammed’s personal foundation.<br />“Like in Versailles, that was way over the top too, and like Louis XIV, he achieved something really quite incredible.”<br />In less than three years in the public eye, Crown Prince Mohammed, 32, has forged a reputation as an assertive — some critics say reckless — leader.
