For sale: tycoon’s 20 apartments
Russian magnate’s luxury Metropolis pads expected to reap well over $10 million.
ARussian energy and finance tycoon is selling 20 luxury Auckland apartments in one of New Zealand’s most sought-after skyscrapers.
Millionaire businessman Nikita Volkov spoke exclusively to the
Herald on Sunday about the sale of his Metropolis Hotel properties, which he began buying in 2008.
He said he is selling the apartments to “realise [his] lifelong dream of establishing a banking organisation in Europe”, and they are expected to fetch well over $10 million.
The total quotable valuation for the apartments as of 2014 is $6,905,000, according to the Auckland Council website, but real estate agent Dale Matravers, of Prestige Realty, stressed the figure was not a market value for the apartments, which are between the 10th and 27th floors.
Volkov made his fortune as a young entrepreneur in Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Since then he has built a wide investment portfolio in several sectors including oil and petroleum, energy, finance, trading, investment banking, agriculture, art, real estate and property development. Volkov, 46, told the Herald on
Sunday he owns or has significant shares in several international companies.
“Sadly, [in the] late 90s and early 2000s, Russia was not a great place to raise my three children,” he said of his arrival in New Zealand.
“My wife and I had the opportunity to choose any place in the world as our family’s new home, and we chose New Zealand after comparing it in every way to other options.”
He said he obtained permanent residency under the investors category in 2002, and is now a New Zealand citizen.
After moving to New Zealand, Volkov said he “started carefully researching reliable risk-free business opportunities”.
“Having experience in property development of residential high-rises, and knowing the value of real estate investment, the Metropolis complex in downtown Auckland particularly appealed to me.
“I concluded that buying apartments in Metropolis and renting them out would give me the best possible value for money invested, compared to any other residential complexes in New Zealand.”
Since 2008 he has been “carefully hand-picking” apartments in the 40-storey inner-city tower.
Matravers, one of two agents selling the properties, told the Herald on Sunday the apartments return more than $600,000 a year. The portfolio has a total floor space of more than 1000sq m and includes four garage carparks and four storage units. Potential buyers will receive floor plans during the due diligence period, Matravers said.
He said the luxurious apartments are of different sizes and styles, including “larger more extravagant suites”, and the 69 to 78sq m twobedroom suites offer “splendid and expansive accommodation, fit for executives and small families”.
The portfolio consists of six twobedroom apartments (two of which have two bathrooms), and 14 onebedroom apartments (35 to 67sq m).
The largest apartment he is selling is on the 18th floor and is 78sq m, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. It also has a carpark and storage. The second largest is on the 14th floor, measuring 77sq m and includes two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The tender for the sale of the properties closes at 5pm on May 5.
Metropolis, a $180m tower on Courthouse Lane has a swimming pool and gym, 37 habitable floors and was completed in 1999 by Krukziener Properties, which is owned by multimillionaire developer Andrew Krukziener.