Who owns London?

The capital’s grand land-owning families are being unseated by new money. Here are the major players monopolising the capital’s property market

- ALICE COCKERELL

On January 22 it was reported that “Hughie”, the 33-yearold Duke of Westminster, had sold a £306 million stake in his London estate to Norway’s oil fund, Norges Bank. As London real estate news it was both big and small fry. Big because in 400 hundred years this is the biggest chunk any member of the family has divested themselves of; small because it is but a fraction of the 300acre Grosvenor Estate and will amount to a puny drop in the ocean of Hughie’s £10 billion fortune.

The truth is London has always been an oligarchy. In fact ever since its bogland days vast swathes have been in the hands of the very few. It’s a giant game of Monopoly, and never more so than today. Because while families like the Grosvenors still clutch the coveted blue cards of Mayfair and Belgravia to their chests, these days the hotels, landmarks and holdings have been swept up, lock-stock and barrel, by newcomers like the Qataris, and brothers Reuben and Candy. So who owns London?

These days the biggest rollers are undoubtedly the Qataris. Headed up by Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, known as “the man who bought London”, at the last count the Qatari Investment Authority owned 533 acres of London, including big-time gems like The Shard and a major chunk of Canary Wharf, as well as hotels: Claridge’s, the Park Lane Inter-Continental, the Berkeley and Connaught. And famously Harrods.