Why did Russian oligarch pay so much for mansion owned by Trump?

Alexandra Clough and John Pacenti, Cox Newspapers
March 9, 2017

PALM BEACH — Why did a Russian oligarch pay now-President Donald Trump $95 million for his Palm Beach mansion? Almost a decade later, the answer is less clear than it was at the time of the sale, the largest price paid for a Palm Beach home.

In 2008, Dmitry Rybolovlev bought the Palm Beach mansion owned by Trump for $13 million more than the most expensive Palm Beach mansion sale up to that moment. It's been almost a decade since the sale, but the transaction is newsworthy again as new questions surround contacts between members of Trump's administration and Russian government officials.

Last week, a Rybolovlev spokesman said his client, who made his fortune in fertilizer potash, purchased the former mansion at of 515 N. County Road for his family's trust. In 2008, Rybolovlev characterized the purchase as a company investment: "This acquisition is simply an investment in real estate by one of the companies in which I have an interest," Rybolovlev said at the time through a spokesman for Uralkali, the fertilizer company he previously owned.

Rybolovlev added that he didn't plan to live in the United States. Nonetheless, he went ahead and paid an exceptionally high, $50 million premium to Trump, then a real estate tycoon and reality show host, for a property he never sought to live in, not even on a part-time basis.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/why-did-russian-oligarch-pay-so-much-for-mansion-owned-by-trump/2316032/