There was a small and beautiful building on the Malabar Hill of Mumbai named Ridgeway Apartment. There were only 12 apartments in this building which were bought by two big multinational banks. When senior officials of these banks used to come to Mumbai, they used to stay in this building. I know this building because one of my relatives lived in this building for some years. I still remember that these apartments were very big and had high ceilings. The layout of the flat was spectacular and the balcony had a lovely view of Marine Drive. If we talk about the density, then its density or population was the lowest compared to the surrounding areas.
In the year 2013, a bank Standard Chartered decided to sell its 6 apartments. The responsibility of selling this flat was given to the specialist of the realty sector. It was discussed whether to sell these flats together or to different people. The bank clearly admitted that the value of building flats is higher than that of individual apartments. So Standard Chartered decided to sell 6 flats to a wealthy family. Whereas this family wanted to buy flats of the entire building.
Meanwhile, a billionaire stock investor was preparing to buy a house. This person was none other than Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. He didn’t want to buy just one or two apartments, but the entire building for himself. The building where Rakesh Jhunjhunwala currently lived had many apartments but very few people selling flats.
On the other hand, the Ridgeway Apartments of Malabar Hill had only 12 flats and the owners were only two. One Standard Chartered and the other HSBC. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala had to convince only two vendors to buy the entire building. Whereas Standard Chartered was already ready to sell its 6 flats.
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Rakesh Jhunjhunwala bid for 6 flats and bought 6 apartments for Rs 176 crore. This price was 20% higher than the minimum reserve price. After this Rakesh Jhunjhunwala also started waiting to buy the remaining 6 flats.
After 4 years HSBC also agreed to sell its 6 flats. Then it was almost certain that Rakesh Jhunjhunwala would set the highest price and would also buy the remaining 6 flats. Exactly the same thing happened. And Rakesh Jhunjhunwala bought 6 flats from HSBC for Rs 195 crore.
Now this entire building has become of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. After this he was preparing to demolish this building and build a bungalow. But later he canceled the plan. Now he will build a 13 building building which will have a beautiful view of the sea.
Amit Pawar of Aakar Architects & Consultants, who are involved in Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s further planning, said, “I can’t say anything clearly about Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s experience in the construction of this building, but it is certain that Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s too. The test has been done. Everyone has been troubled by many policies and rules. But they have put in a lot of effort to understand the finer aspects of building a house.”