London: The Chief executive of Serum Institute of India (SII), Adar Poonawalla agreed to rent a property for about $69,000(Rs 50 Lakh) a week, in London’s exclusive Mayfair area.
Adar Poonawalla is leasing the home on one of the district’s best roads from Polish billionaire Dominika Kulczyk. The property is known to be the largest residences in the neighbourhood and measures about 25,000 square feet, equivalent of about 24 average English homes. It also has an adjoining guest house and access to one of the “secret gardens” of Mayfair.
The deal will be a boost for the luxury homes market in central London, which has been hit by a combination of Brexit and the pandemic. Rents have fallen by 9.2% in the past five years in Mayfair, according to LonRes, a property data company.
Poonawalla, who is the son of Cyrus Poonawalla, India’s seventh-richest billionaire, had previously failed in a bid to buy the Grosvenor Hotel in Mayfair. It is currently spearheading the production of millions of doses of AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 vaccine, has long had links to the U.K. and studied at London’s University of Westminster.
Ms Kalinga