Prokhorov Says He Didn't Buy Villa Leopolda Either

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Aug 20th 2008 at 7:02AM

Now this is just getting ridiculous. First Roman Abramovich was rumored to have bought Villa Leopolda, the pricey estate in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. Then Russian precious metals mogul Mikhail Prokhorov was said to have snapped it up. As my colleague Jared Paul Stern reported over the weekend, Prokhorov is the 24th richest man in the world with a $22 billion fortune and was briefly detained during an investigation into a suspected prostitution ring at a ski resort in the French Alps. Turns out Prokhorov still has some hurt feelings over that bit of police drama says BBC News and according to a spokesman, refuses to do business in France until he gets a proper apology.

We are starting to run out of Russian billionaires to pin this on. Well, that's not entirely true, there is still a long list but hopefully someone will own up to the $750 million purchase pretty soon. You can't keep a secret that big for too long.

Tags: france, mikhail prokhorov, MikhailProkhorov, villa leopolda, VillaLeopolda