Joseph Lau, Hong Kong's fifth richest man who spent nearly £50m on diamonds, is now bound to buy a skyscraper in London.
Yahoo Finance reported that Chinese Estates, a company controlled by Lau, is set to buy 88 Wood Street for £270 million. The skyscraper was designed by Richard Rogers. The company also owns Goldman Sachs' London headquarters. He used to own a Belgravia home that had a gold-lined swimming pool and was sold for £70 million two years ago.
Lau, 64, is said to be worth £8 billion. The business tycoon spent £32 million to buy the world's most precious gem, the 12-carat "Blue Moon" diamond which he renamed "Josephine." He also bought a 16.08-carat vivid pink diamond auctioned by Christie's for £19 million a day earlier for his seven-year-old daughter, Josephine, and called it "Sweet Josephine."
Together with Lau's art collection is a seven-foot high Chairman Mao painted by Andy Warhol, which he bought for £11.3 million at a Christie's auction in New York in 2006, as reported by Telegraph.
He has one of the world's best collections of fine wines with 10,000 bottles, as well as a fleet of jets. He also ordered a Boeing 787 Dreamliner - an aircraft that has a commercial capacity of more than 300 people - but was cancelled due to production delay by Boeing.
According to reports, Josephine's mother is former aide Chan Hoi-wan. Lau also has two children with Yvonne Lui, his long-time partner.
Meanwhile the 23,226-square-foot skyscraper was the second Richard Rogers building to be built in the City of London after Lloyds of London and was the 2000 RIBA award winner. It features solar detectors on the roof that scan the building's solar gain and automatically adjust the blinds' angle behind the cavity of the triple glazing to maintain the cool inside. The building services are located outside, in six corner shafts that allow the floor-plates to be free of traditional cores and completely open.
