Property tycoon Christian Candy has sold his luxury estate in west London for around £125m, one of the biggest housing deals this year, according to people briefed on the transaction.
Christian and his brother Nick Candy made a name for themselves selling expensive apartments in London to the super-rich in the years after the 2008 financial crisis.
Christian Candy bought the main property of his Surrey estate, Cheval Manor, in 2015 for £29m, according to Land Registry documents. He later acquired a number of parcels and neighboring properties, all connected to form the sprawling estate called “Candyland”.
Having invested tens of millions of pounds in the estate, Candy, 49, has been looking to sell for three years and initially expected to receive 140 million pounds from the sale, a person with knowledge of the deal said. The eventual buyer was from the Middle East, this person added.
The tycoon sold a house overlooking Regent’s Park in London for £104 million in 2020.
Candy declined to comment. Luxury estate agents Savills and Knight Frank worked on the sale of his Surrey property, two people with knowledge of the £125m transaction said. Both companies declined to comment.
Property sales of £100m or more are extremely rare in England, particularly outside London.
“There are less than a handful [of £100mn-plus sales a year]” said Roarie Scarisbrick, buying agent at Property Vision, the luxury property consultancy. “It’s talked about as a market, but it’s not: it’s a series of anomalies.”
Surrey and the private estates near Candy’s property, such as Wentworth and St George’s Hill, are a magnet for wealthy buyers from around the world.
In March, the Times reported that Candy had spent at least £50m redeveloping his estate, which includes a 25m underground swimming pool.
In 2021, Candy obtained planning permission to build a network of underground tunnels connecting parts of the estate, including a basement equipped to house a collection of almost 60 cars.
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Nick Candy was the public face of the brothers’ development activities and has remained in the public eye, most recently working on an unsuccessful bid for Chelsea Football Club and a failed approach to buy online retailer THG.
Christian has kept a lower profile, developing high-end properties in Holland Park, west London.
The apartments at the brothers’ flagship development, One Hyde Park in Knightsbridge, are among the most expensive in the UK capital.