The dream of winning a million is an every-day fantasy of most people, but experts suggest that we would find it difficult to live among the world's super rich
< Ten Lifestyle also do billionaires’ personal shopping, with staff
liaising with stores like Liberty, Selfridges and Harrods to source the
latest designer gear for demanding customers. Their most requested item
is the Hermes Birkin bag, costing up to £10,000. >
But
these days a million pounds wouldn’t even get you into the VIP
departure lounge in the weird world of the mega rich – let alone on the
plane sipping champagne.
They are the one per cent of the global population to whom the word ‘millionaire’ means someone with small change.
Enough, maybe, to buy you a swanky apartment in London – but what about the yacht, the Picasso, and the crystal-studded bath, darling?
And then there’s the private plane, the ski chalet in Courcheval, and the superstar-studded birthday party. A mere million won’t get you that.
Even in our wildest lottery dreams, we’d find it hard to imagine life among the super rich, say the experts who keep an eye on their world.
According to a report, the average billionaire spends £13million on yachts, £9.5million on private planes and £8.2million on art.
Author Stewart Lansley has written extensively about Britain’s super rich, including Topshop boss Philip Green, 62.
Stewart says there two types of billionaire – the ones who prefer to be discreet and those who like to splash the cash.
He says: “Philip Green is an extrovert, he loves to throw a party so he’s always lavishing money on guests. They spend money like water.”
Green blew £6.5million on his 60th birthday bash, flying out Michael Bublé, Stevie Wonder and Robbie Williams to entertain guests at a resort in Mexico.
Included was a £150,000 fireworks display and guests drank Cos d’Estournel 2001 at £120 a bottle and Puligny-Montrachet La Garenne 2009 at £80.
Green’s daughter Chloe, 23, has taken up her father’s lifestyle. When she’s not in Barbados with ex Marc Anthony, Ibiza with Kate Moss, or Miami with her brother Brandon, Chloe skis in elite French resort Courcheval or hangs out on the Greens’ £20million yacht at Monte Carlo.
For her 18th birthday pressie she got a flat in London’s Belgravia and she claims to own 70 pairs of Louboutin heels.
The daughters of billionaire Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, 83, are no strangers to spending. In 2010 Tamara, 29, hit the headlines when she paid £1million for a bath tub studded with rare Amazon crystals, saying: “I spend a lot of time in the bath.”
And younger sister Petra thought nothing of splashing £91million on a 57,000 sq ft hilltop LA mansion.
These days you don’t have to be aristocracy to live the life of Riley. The UK’s richest woman is neither an heiress nor a Lady.
Kirsty Bertarelli, 42, is a former Miss UK who came third in the 1988 Miss World contest and wrote songs for the ’90s band All Saints.
She is worth £7.4billion and enjoys holidays with her Swiss husband on board their £100million yacht.
Josh Spero, editor of Spear’s magazine for the ultra-rich, says the real bragging-rights trophies among the super rich are, inevitably, yachts and supercars – but also art.
“With the cars, we’re not talking about stuff you see on Top Gear,” he says. “These are models you’ve never even heard of because they’re so expensive and produced in such limited numbers.
“When it comes to art, paintings by Picasso and Francis Bacon go for tens of millions. Jeff Koons’ work has sold for just shy of $58million.
" People who can afford it see it as a huge investment and can get very competitive about it too.”
They are the one per cent of the global population to whom the word ‘millionaire’ means someone with small change.
Enough, maybe, to buy you a swanky apartment in London – but what about the yacht, the Picasso, and the crystal-studded bath, darling?
And then there’s the private plane, the ski chalet in Courcheval, and the superstar-studded birthday party. A mere million won’t get you that.
Even in our wildest lottery dreams, we’d find it hard to imagine life among the super rich, say the experts who keep an eye on their world.
According to a report, the average billionaire spends £13million on yachts, £9.5million on private planes and £8.2million on art.
Author Stewart Lansley has written extensively about Britain’s super rich, including Topshop boss Philip Green, 62.
Stewart says there two types of billionaire – the ones who prefer to be discreet and those who like to splash the cash.
He says: “Philip Green is an extrovert, he loves to throw a party so he’s always lavishing money on guests. They spend money like water.”
Green blew £6.5million on his 60th birthday bash, flying out Michael Bublé, Stevie Wonder and Robbie Williams to entertain guests at a resort in Mexico.
Included was a £150,000 fireworks display and guests drank Cos d’Estournel 2001 at £120 a bottle and Puligny-Montrachet La Garenne 2009 at £80.
Green’s daughter Chloe, 23, has taken up her father’s lifestyle. When she’s not in Barbados with ex Marc Anthony, Ibiza with Kate Moss, or Miami with her brother Brandon, Chloe skis in elite French resort Courcheval or hangs out on the Greens’ £20million yacht at Monte Carlo.
For her 18th birthday pressie she got a flat in London’s Belgravia and she claims to own 70 pairs of Louboutin heels.
The daughters of billionaire Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, 83, are no strangers to spending. In 2010 Tamara, 29, hit the headlines when she paid £1million for a bath tub studded with rare Amazon crystals, saying: “I spend a lot of time in the bath.”
And younger sister Petra thought nothing of splashing £91million on a 57,000 sq ft hilltop LA mansion.
These days you don’t have to be aristocracy to live the life of Riley. The UK’s richest woman is neither an heiress nor a Lady.
Kirsty Bertarelli, 42, is a former Miss UK who came third in the 1988 Miss World contest and wrote songs for the ’90s band All Saints.
She is worth £7.4billion and enjoys holidays with her Swiss husband on board their £100million yacht.
Josh Spero, editor of Spear’s magazine for the ultra-rich, says the real bragging-rights trophies among the super rich are, inevitably, yachts and supercars – but also art.
“With the cars, we’re not talking about stuff you see on Top Gear,” he says. “These are models you’ve never even heard of because they’re so expensive and produced in such limited numbers.
“When it comes to art, paintings by Picasso and Francis Bacon go for tens of millions. Jeff Koons’ work has sold for just shy of $58million.
" People who can afford it see it as a huge investment and can get very competitive about it too.”
Roman Abramovich's yacht, which is worth around £300million
But
there are also the rare billionaires who prefer to stay out of the
limelight. The best-known is Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, 47.
Stewart says: “He has a lot of properties and yachts but in person he’s a very quiet man. He’s shy and doesn’t like to socialise.”
Eclipse, the super yacht owned by the Russian, is said to be worth around £300million. It boasts two helicopter pads, 24 guest cabins, two pools, several hot tubs, three launch boats, a mini-submarine and around 70 crew members.
He recently spent £25million refitting the Nahlin, a luxury steam yacht built in 1929 and once used by King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.
Then there are the anonymous billionaires.
Josh says: “You will always get a few fame-seekers, but what most very wealthy people want is to be left alone. Some even employ reputation managers to keep them out of the rich list.
"They don’t want people writing to them begging for money. They don’t want to be at risk of kidnapping.”
But whatever type they are, the mega rich expect their money to talk for them and to get what they want – as the ‘lifestyle concierges’ who help plan their daily lives know only too well.
Alex Cheatly, boss of concierge firm Ten Lifestyle, says: “I had a female client call to say her daughter really wanted to go and see Justin Bieber but it was sold out.
“So we sorted front row seats and the daughter got to go backstage to meet Justin after the show.”
Earlier this month Alex arranged for a British client living in Singapore to fly to London with his teenage son for 48 hours to see the FA Cup Final.
They requested a box at Wembley plus dinner, hotel and hospitality, costing the client tens of thousands of pounds. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
One employee at a top concierge service told us of the Saudi prince who had portraits of his face made from chocolate to give to guests at his birthday party.
She also recalled a client who phoned them while on the toilet in his Dubai hotel to say he’d run out of loo roll. He asked them to call the hotel thousands of miles away to demand they send up more.
Stewart says: “He has a lot of properties and yachts but in person he’s a very quiet man. He’s shy and doesn’t like to socialise.”
Eclipse, the super yacht owned by the Russian, is said to be worth around £300million. It boasts two helicopter pads, 24 guest cabins, two pools, several hot tubs, three launch boats, a mini-submarine and around 70 crew members.
He recently spent £25million refitting the Nahlin, a luxury steam yacht built in 1929 and once used by King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.
Then there are the anonymous billionaires.
Josh says: “You will always get a few fame-seekers, but what most very wealthy people want is to be left alone. Some even employ reputation managers to keep them out of the rich list.
"They don’t want people writing to them begging for money. They don’t want to be at risk of kidnapping.”
But whatever type they are, the mega rich expect their money to talk for them and to get what they want – as the ‘lifestyle concierges’ who help plan their daily lives know only too well.
Alex Cheatly, boss of concierge firm Ten Lifestyle, says: “I had a female client call to say her daughter really wanted to go and see Justin Bieber but it was sold out.
“So we sorted front row seats and the daughter got to go backstage to meet Justin after the show.”
Earlier this month Alex arranged for a British client living in Singapore to fly to London with his teenage son for 48 hours to see the FA Cup Final.
They requested a box at Wembley plus dinner, hotel and hospitality, costing the client tens of thousands of pounds. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
One employee at a top concierge service told us of the Saudi prince who had portraits of his face made from chocolate to give to guests at his birthday party.
She also recalled a client who phoned them while on the toilet in his Dubai hotel to say he’d run out of loo roll. He asked them to call the hotel thousands of miles away to demand they send up more.
Alex says this kind of thing is par for the course when your net worth comes with nine zeros.
He says: “A client will express an interest in a new Jag and we will arrange to have one sent to their home with a couple of alternative models to test drive.”
Ten Lifestyle also do billionaires’ personal shopping, with staff liaising with stores like Liberty, Selfridges and Harrods to source the latest designer gear for demanding customers. Their most requested item is the Hermes Birkin bag, costing up to £10,000.
And having mega bucks means billionaires also don’t have to deal with the day-to-day annoyances of household chores.
Clients will send over a to-do list detailing a stain on the carpet, wonky shelf, broken doorbell and dripping tap and the team will book the handymen.
And requests can be as sublime or ridiculous as the client’s whim.
Alex says: “We once had a mother contact to ask if we could source a child’s fancy dress outfit for a party the next day.”
But Spear’s editor Josh says billionaires’ children are rarely brought up spoilt. “Most rich parents I know want their kids to grow up appreciating the value of money,” he says. “A lot of them are big philanthropists too. They give a lot of their money away to charities.”
But ultimately the question we all want the answer to is this: Does all their money make them happier than us?
Josh doesn’t think so. “Rich people still suffer from all the same problems as us. They fall ill, relationships fail, they just have a better cushion for dealing with it.
“And of course they have problems specific to their lifestyle such as ‘Oh God, is there a problem with my private jet?’”
So forget that worrying noise coming from under your old banger’s bonnet, and spare a thought for the billionaire hearing the same sound at 40,000ft.
He says: “A client will express an interest in a new Jag and we will arrange to have one sent to their home with a couple of alternative models to test drive.”
Ten Lifestyle also do billionaires’ personal shopping, with staff liaising with stores like Liberty, Selfridges and Harrods to source the latest designer gear for demanding customers. Their most requested item is the Hermes Birkin bag, costing up to £10,000.
And having mega bucks means billionaires also don’t have to deal with the day-to-day annoyances of household chores.
Clients will send over a to-do list detailing a stain on the carpet, wonky shelf, broken doorbell and dripping tap and the team will book the handymen.
And requests can be as sublime or ridiculous as the client’s whim.
Alex says: “We once had a mother contact to ask if we could source a child’s fancy dress outfit for a party the next day.”
But Spear’s editor Josh says billionaires’ children are rarely brought up spoilt. “Most rich parents I know want their kids to grow up appreciating the value of money,” he says. “A lot of them are big philanthropists too. They give a lot of their money away to charities.”
But ultimately the question we all want the answer to is this: Does all their money make them happier than us?
Josh doesn’t think so. “Rich people still suffer from all the same problems as us. They fall ill, relationships fail, they just have a better cushion for dealing with it.
“And of course they have problems specific to their lifestyle such as ‘Oh God, is there a problem with my private jet?’”
So forget that worrying noise coming from under your old banger’s bonnet, and spare a thought for the billionaire hearing the same sound at 40,000ft.
By Francesca Cookney
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mega-rich-yachts-private-planes-3602631
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