Swati Sharma
Dubai's spiralling credit crisis
will see Shah Rukh Khan and Abhi- Ash
( Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai)
sharing some anxious moments with the likes
of David Beckham and Brad Pitt. These celebrities
will lose millions on their luxury pads
in Palm Jumeirah in Dubai.
The Bollywood celebrities had seen the prices of
their upcoming luxury homes plummeting last year
because of the economic slowdown. But now, with
real estate developer Nakheel's acceptance that
the palm treeshaped development, which juts out
into the Persian Gulf, has run out of cash and may
not be finished, the situation has gone from bad to worse.
Speculation is rife that the man- made development,
which is the second after the Great Wall of China
that can be seen from the moon, will end up looking
like an ugly, unfinished construction site.
SRK had received a villa at The Palms as a gift from
Dubai's ruler to promote a boulevard named after him.
SRK's villa, within shouting distance of the sevenbedroom
house bought by David Beckham and his wife Victoria in 2002,
has a private beach that is guarded by a 24- hour patrol.
Abhi- Ash are also believed to own a villa in the prestigious
Sanctuary Falls, a resort- style villa community within Jumeirah
Golf Estates. The villa comes with Scavolini designer kitchens
and Bang & Olufsen home the-
atre systems. The couple had made quite a noise about how they
would like to use the pad as a weekend destination for
the entire Bachchan family.
These Bollywood celebs are among the many who had queued
up for the 2,000 luxury villas on The Palms that went up
for sale in 2002 and got sold out within a month. Other
celebrities who own patches of this bigdevelopment include
Donald Trump, Michael Owen, Michael Schumacher and Tiger Woods.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie own an artificial island within '
The World' in Dubai, which is a cluster of 300 man- made islands
that collectively form a map of the world's continents and countries.
Virgin's flamboyant boss, Richard Branson, and pop star Rod Stewart
have properties in the same development.
Among the sportsmen, former Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher
owns a $ 7- million ( Rs 32.5 crore at present rates) slice of
' Antarctica' in The World.
Britain's star footballers Ashley Cole, Michael Owen and Gary Neville
also have villas. So does former English Test cricketer Andrew Flintoff.
Early this year, these villas, which were priced at $ 4.4 million
( Rs 20.5 crore) each, saw their prices going down
by half to $ 2.2 million ( about Rs 10.2 crore)
Source: India Today
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