If there was a competition between Indian billionaires about who can buy the most expensive London property, vaccine prince Adar Poonawalla has just trumped them all. He’s splashed out an extraordinary $172 million to buy Aberconway House in London’s exclusive Mayfair district.

While having a London mansion as a home-away-from-home is a must for many Indian billionaires, the price tag makes the residence the second most expensive ever sold in the UK capital. The Serum Institute CEO has outspent steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and even Reliance’s Mukesh Ambani.

Ambani’s Stoke Park, which is located just outside London and boasts a magnificent golf course, cost a mere $57 million. Poonawalla, 42, has also paid more than tycoon Essar’s Ravi Ruia who earlier this year bought for $141 million a mansion facing Regent’s Park that earlier had been owned by a Russian property tycoon.

So what’s Poonawalla got for his $172 million? From the outside, a person might not guess just how big the home is on the inside. Aberconway House has a 65-foot entrance hall, a dining room that seats 30 “comfortably,” eight reception rooms and 13 bedrooms. It also has a chandelier-lit ballroom. It has a massage room, steam room and sauna and planning permission for a pool, spa, gym area and roof garden. Also, in 2007 it got permission to build a “panic room with walls able to withstand sustained gunfire,” The Times, London, reported. It’s not known if the panic room was ever built.

Still, Poonawalla may need to spend on updating the house. The property listing notes that the property “is in need of modernisation.”

Poonawalla and Ruia’s transactions have only been beaten by Chinese property tycoon Hui Ka Yan, of the troubled Evergrande group, who purchased a mansion near Hyde Park in 2020 for $221 million from the estate of a former Saudi Arabian crown prince. Hui’s wealth has tumbled by 83 per cent since July 2020 and he’s desperately trying to sell the 45-room mansion to pay off debts but the dwelling is reported to be severely rundown.

Exclusive area of London

Built in the early 1920s for industrialist Henry McLaren, the 2nd Baron Aberconway, Poonawalla’s 23,000-sq-ft listed property sits in one of London's most exclusive areas and has access to one of Mayfair’s “secret” private gardens.

Poonawalla decided to buy Aberconway mansion after first renting it in 2021 for a eye-popping $69,000 a week. The enormous rent had made headlines in the British press and was itself a record-breaker. He bought the neo-Georgian Mayfair mansion from Dominika Kulczyk, the daughter of late Polish billionaire Jan Kulczyk, once Poland’s richest man. Reflecting how London high-end property prices have soared in the last few years, Kulczyk has made a big profit – she purchased the property three years ago for 57 million POUNDS STERLING ($72 million).

The Poonawalla family reportedly has no plan to relocate to the UK permanently but 'the house will serve as a base for the company and family when they are in the UK'. Serum Institute has made multimillion-pound investments in vaccine research and manufacturing facilities near Oxford. Poonawalla has close ties with the UK. He attended a private school in Canterbury and studied at London’s University of Westminster.

The building once served as the headquarters of the Rank Organisation, the entertainment company, before being converted back into a private residence for the ultra-rich in the 1990s.

Acquired by a Serum Life Science 

The residence will be acquired by Serum Life Sciences, the UK subsidiary of the Poonawalla family's Serum Institute.

Poonawalla took over as chief executive of Serum Institute in 2011 from his father Cyrus Poonawalla, who’s ranked sixth on Forbes' list of richest people in India. Cyrus Poonawalla, who founded Serum Institute which is the world’s largest global vaccine producer, has a net worth of $20.7 billion.

High-end properties in London have remained isolated from the slowdown in UK home sales caused by higher mortgage costs as few buyers of prime residences need mortgages. The prize properties have also remained attractive to international buyers despite new transparency measures to help target Russian money since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Giant player Lakshmi Mittal

The Indian tycoon who’s a giant player in London real-estate is Lakshmi Mittal who paid POUNDS STERLING 57 million in 2004 for a home on what is possibly London’s most prestigious street, Kensington Palace Gardens, where Princess Diana once lived. Mittal bought an even bigger second spread on the super-exclusive KPG in 2008 for POUNDS STERLING 117 million which was intended for his son Aditya. However, he put the mansion up for sale in 2013. He also bought another mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens for his daughter. When he first moved to London in the 1990s Mittal bought a home along The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead where an eight-bedroom home is currently on sale for POUNDS STERLING 30 million.

Lakshmi Mittal’s brother-in-law Sri Prakash Lohia has also made a splash in the London super-rich property market. Lohia, who runs the Indorama Corporation and made it big in Indonesia, bought Sheridan House, also in Mayfair. The businessman, who has a collection of lithographs that are rated as one of the world’s best, is said to have spent around POUNDS STERLING 50 million to restore his home.

Other Indians who are occupying prime real estate in London include the Hinduja family who moved their stomping grounds to London decades ago. They’re in Carlton House Terrace, near Buckingham Palace, where their joint home is spread out over 67,000sq ft. The Hindujas are famous for their parties held at their office in New Zealand House, close to Trafalgar Square.

Ambani bought Stoke Park

One other newer entrant is Ambani of Reliance who bought Stoke Park set on 300 acres in 2021. The “trophy asset” which included a Georgian Mansion, a country club and a 27-hole golf course featured in two James Bond films. The purchase caused irritation among locals when the Ambanis closed the golf club for renovations. At one time, it was rumoured that Ambani planned to live there permanently but he has now returned to Mumbai.

Wetherell, an estate agent which deals in the prime end of London’s property market reckoned in 2021 that there were about 20 homes in central London that might be priced at over POUNDS STERLING 100 million. These homes were located in a few London areas like Mayfair, Belgravia, Knightsbridge, Regent’s Park and Hampstead.

Wetherell reckons that, “the giga-prime 100 million POUNDS STERLING home market in London is dominated by buyers from just seven countries Qatar, India, Britain, America, China, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. However, prime-end real estate agents point out that a couple of expensive purchases can change the percentage makeup dramatically. Russians were big in the London market but have stopped buying since the Ukraine conflict began in 2022.