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Brunei Sultan's brother sells art to pay off debts Oct 2, 1999
HIS brother is said to be one of the world's richest men. He, too, has money. Or, rather, he had it. Prince Jefri, the Sultan of Brunei's brother, is believed to be broke, and is set to hold a 400-million ($1.1 billion) "distress sale" of his art collection. It would be the biggest ever single-owner sale of art, reported The Evening Standard. It would go under the hammer in four auctions, with the first to be held next month, the paper said. Auction house Sotheby's is to dispose of the first lot in New York in an auction estimated to fetch about 62 million. The other three auctions are to be held next year. The overall total from the four auctions is expected to be between 370 million and 430 million. Whatever the sum may be, it will go towards paying the debt of more than 10 billion that Amedeo, Prince Jefri's construction company, had incurred. Amedeo collapsed last year. The so-called distress sale is the aftermath of the Sultan's move in September last year to pass the handling of Amedeo's affairs on to accountants Arthur Andersen & Co. The Sultan sacked Prince Jefri from his post as Brunei's finance minister in February last year. The ruler then removed his brother from the chairmanship of the Brunei Investment Agency (BIA). A few months later, the Sultan barred Amedeo from any trading when its debt, said to be the world's biggest corporate debt, came to light. Two months after that, in September, the Sultan ordered a probe into BIA's dealings. He then asked the Bank of England to help track down 28 billion of state and family funds that allegedly "disappeared". Over the years, Prince Jefri had bought, via Amedeo, 17 planes, including a Boeing 747 jumbo jet, and more than 2,000 cars. His friends have blamed the collapse in world oil prices. |
