Oligarch Buys Up French Hotels

Its guests have included Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin and Somerset Maugham. Picasso improved his breaststroke in the pool and Europe's bored aristocracy went there to let their hair down.

But yesterday the legendary Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat, one of the world's most exclusive resorts, became the latest hotel to be owned by a billionaire Russian oligarch. The London-based businessman Leonard Blavatnik snapped up the three-hectare (seven-acre) property on the French Riviera along with the Hôtel de Vendôme in Paris, another luxury five-star resort favoured by the rich and famous.

According to the Russian business daily Vedomosti, Mr Blavatnik bought the hotels for €215m (£146m), comparatively little for a man with £4.7bn in the bank.

Mr Blavatnik, 48, is Britain's sixth wealthiest resident. Penniless when he left the Soviet Union in 1978, he has built up a fortune by investing in post-communist Russia. He moved from the US to Britain two years ago.

Last year fellow oligarch Roman Abramovich bought the nearby Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, another exclusive seaside hotel in Antibes, between Cannes and Nice.

The Grand Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat is now owned by STT Properties, a subisidiary of Mr Blavatnik's US Access Industries group. A hotel spokeswoman said the change would not affect the running of the hotel or plans for an extension next year.