The 2010’s Biggest Luxury Buys
Laurence Graff paid a world record for a gem...What's more extravagant than spending $330,000 on two white truffles, the pricey fungi popular with foodies around the world? Spending $330,000 on the delicacies and then not even eating them.
Billionaire Stanley Ho, the casino king of Macau, did just that at a London auction in November. According to a truffle expert, the large, aged Italian specimens Ho bought--"grand champions" in industry parlance--were not the sort you'd want to sprinkle on your risotto.
"They're mostly or entirely unusable for culinary concerns," says Britt Bunyard, publisher of Fungi magazine. "They're overmature, split open and often have bad or decomposed parts. The truffle connoisseur would pass them over for younger ones."
This wasn't Ho's first time spending six figures on inedible fungi. November's $330,000 purchase matches the Hong Kong-based developer's own 2007 record for the delicacy, and he's well-known to Bunyard and other truffle specialists as the man to beat at auctions worldwide. The high prices Ho pays are inflated, as proceeds from these auctions generally benefit charities, but Bunyard is still not sure why the ultrarich flock to buy what he calls "a strong-smelling, black, dirty potato" over any other luxury item on the market. "It has me scratching my head," he says. "When anything gets to be rare and really expensive, the rich have to have it."
Some of the other extravagant purchases made by members of FORBES' World Billionaires list this year are decidedly more appealing than Ho's decomposing truffles but no less frivolous. Hong Kong real estate magnate Joseph Lau paid $16.7 million for two antique incense burners at Christie's in December. They're shaped like cranes, the long-legged birds that in China symbolize longevity.
The London jeweler Laurence Graff paid a world record sum for a gem, spending $46 million at a Geneva auction in November for a rare 24.78-carat pink diamond that was last on the market 60 years ago. American hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen bypassed the auction circuit to snap up the year's priciest piece of art via a private sale. He reportedly spent $110 million on Jasper Johns' famous "Flag" painting, setting a record for most expensive work by a living artist. In November Cohen won the star lot at Sotheby's contemporary sale: He spent $35.4 million for Andy Warhol's iconic 1962 painting of a Coca-Cola bottle.
Another of this year's big spenders: The crown prince of Dubai, a member of the FORBES World's Richest Royals list. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is heavily involved in racing and breeding Thoroughbreds, and spent $5.4 million on 24 yearlings at an October horse auction in England. It seems his investments in the horse racing industry are paying off. In 2010 alone the horses owned by his family's Godolphin Stables raked in over $16 million in prize money, winning at least 200 races among them.
By: Forbes
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