Buzz: Sandy Weill sells his NYC apartment for jaw-dropping sum

A Manhattan penthouse owned by Sanford Weill, former chairman of Citigroup Inc. (C), and listed for $88 million, is being purchased for the daughter of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev. A company associated with Ekaterina Rybolovleva signed a contract to purchase the 6,744-square-foot (627-square-meter), full-floor condominium at 15 Central Park West, Alan Basiev, a spokesman for Rybolovlev, said in an e-mail. Rybolovleva, who is studying at a U.S. university, plans to stay at the apartment when visiting New York, Basiev said. Her father, ranked number 93 on the Forbes list of the world's billionaires with a net worth of $9.5 billion, is the former owner of fertilizer maker OAO Uralkali. The condominium was listed for sale by brokerage Brown Harris Stevens last month. Weill and his wife, Joan, paid $43.7 million for the property in 2007, according to city records. “Given that the sale was done so quietly and quickly, it probably sold at or near the listing price,” said Jonathan Miller, president of appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. The average sale takes about four months, he said. A sale anywhere close to $88 million would make it the most expensive residential transaction ever in Manhattan, according to Miller. The prior record was the $53 million sale of a townhouse to private-equity investor J. Christopher Flowers in 2006, Miller said. That property resold on Aug. 15 for $36.5 million, he said. Weak U.S. Dollar “Right now we're seeing a whole slew of trophy-property sales,” Miller said. “This is in part due to the weak dollar, which is driving foreign investments.” Sales of Manhattan luxury apartments, defined as the top 10 percent of all condo and co-op transactions by price, jumped 17 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to Miller Samuel and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The four-bedroom Central Park West condo features a wraparound terrace, two wood-burning fireplaces and a library, according to a floor plan on Brown Harris's website. Amy Gotzler, a spokeswoman at Brown Harris, declined to comment today. The agreement was reported yesterday by the New York Observer. --Bloomberg News--