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Candys sell two homes as one to make £10m profit
Hugo Duncan, City Correspondent12 Oct 2007
The Candy brothers are set to make a £10million profit on a London house they bought just four months ago.
Christian and Nick Candy bought Rutland House in Rutland Gardens, Knightsbridge, for £18.25 million and the next-door summer house for more than £4 million in June.
They have now put the combined property up for sale for £32.5 million - about £10 million more than they paid.
It has only been on the market for two weeks but has already attracted interest from a number of businessmen from the Middle East, Russia, China and Singapore, according to selling agent Savills.
A successful sale will represent another killing for the Candy brothers who have taken the London property market by storm.
The pair are also building apartments at One Hyde Park and are behind the redevelopment of Middlesex Hospital and Chelsea Barracks.
Rutland House is currently offices but Noel de Keyser of Savills said it has the potential to be "a stunning Knightsbridge home".
He said the six-storey property, which has a lift, has enough space for seven reception rooms, five en-suite bedrooms, staff accommodation and a swimming pool and gym. It also comes with a roof garden, patio and private parking. Rutland Gardens is a private road and a gate lodge limits access to the road and adds security.
When they first agreed to buy the building in February, the Candy brothers, who are still in their thirties, intended to convert it into a home themselves before selling it.
However, the deal was not completed until June and they have now decided to concentrate on their bigger projects.
The most expensive apartment at One Hyde Park has already been sold for £100 million even though the project will not be finished until 2010.
Mr de Keyser said there was considerable interest in Rutland House from people looking for a home as well as from other developers and investors.
"Buying the adjoining building was the key to turning it into a very impressive house with a very impressive leisure complex in the basement," he said. "There are a lot of people who want a substantial London house and it is quite difficult to find something of that size in Knightsbridge.
"But British people are unlikely to go for something as big as this. If they were going to spend that sort of money they would spend it on a big house in the country rather than in London."
The profit set to be made by the Candysshows that the top end of London housing market is still booming.
While house prices in other areas of the country are rising more slowly, demand for the best homes in the capital remains strong.
Mr de Keyser said: "The prime end of the central London market has not been adversely affected by the recent slowing down across the mainstream markets as the people buying the houses are unaffected by the subprime debt crisis or the turmoil in the financial markets."
