Introducing the new king of Florida flips.
New York financier Scott Shleifer, co-founder of Tiger Global Management’s private equity unit, has been revealed as the mysterious buyer who spent $ 122.7 million – cash – to build an oceanfront spec home. Palm Beach that once belonged to Donald Trump. It’s the highest ever paid for an estate in Palm Beach, or, for that matter, a home anywhere in the state of Florida.
“He flew in for the day, looked at the house for about 15 minutes, closed the deal with cash, then flew back to New York,” a source who was aware of the deal told The Post exclusively.
“He’s just a family man who’s really good at math,” the source added.
Shleifer’s company, which manages $ 40 billion, had a great year in 2020 – and he’s not alone.
New Jersey-based hedge financier David Tepper also paid just $ 70 million for a pandemic Palm Beach mansion, according to reports.
“These guys are all the same,” said the source. “For them it is just a hedge against the market. They fly to Miami or Palm Beach and go to a place like Cipriani’s, which they know from New York. They get a table in the back, or simply collect them because of COVID. These guys are super aware of COVID. They don’t want to be with people and they don’t have to be in New York anymore. Nobody has to be here. You just know. That is so crazy. They can do whatever they want. ”
Shleifer’s new dig comes with a nine-bedroom mansion and guest house, which together cover 21,000 square feet. The main house is ready to entertain, with large rooms, a bar, games room, wine cellar and beauty salon. The outdoor area features a swimming pool and an open-air cinema. The 2-acre estate, which was built last year, was on the market for just a month, asking for $ 140 million.
Yet despite its astonishing price, the property, located at 535 North County Road, can’t shake its controversial history.
The land was once part of a 6.2-hectare estate that housed Maison de L’Amitie, or House of Friendship. Ironically, the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the former president, then a businessman, both fought for the estate when it was sold in bankruptcy auction in 2005. Trump outbid Epstein and paid $ 41.3 million for the property.
Prior to that, in the late 1980s, it was owned by Epstein’s benefactor, retail billionaire Les Wexner, who donated Epstein his Manhattan mansion used by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to groom and abuse underage girls and stage sleepovers for alleged mates. underage sex abusers, such as Prince Andrew.
Wexner paid $ 10 million for the Palm Beach estate in 1985.
In 2008, Trump turned the estate over to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev – who made headlines when he bought Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” for $ 450 million – for $ 95 million. The deal earned Trump a profit of $ 54 million and became a subject of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Rybolovlev destroyed the house and sold three adjacent lots for the combined price of $ 108.2 million, according to reports – less than the cost of carrying the property combined with the costs associated with demolishing the mansion.
Rybolovlev’s spokesperson once told this reporter it was a smart deal because he would make money selling the subdivisions – but Rybolovlev reportedly never made a penny from it.
In the most recent record-breaking deal, reality TV star and real estate broker Ryan Serhant teamed up with Douglas Elliman’s Christopher Leavitt to represent the buyer. Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates represented the seller.