The wife of Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Cathy Zhang Ying, bought a Belgravia mansion that once served as the Italian embassy in London, the Financial Times reported.
Zhang purchased the Grade II listed townhouse for £19.5 million last autumn, making it the 34th most expensive sale last year in the British capital, the newspaper said.
The building was used as the Italian embassy in the 1920s and also served as the office of the Italian defence attaché.
Belgravia mansion
With floor space tallying 7,948 sq ft, it was later converted into a residence and features a cinema, a lift and six bedrooms.
The sale was recorded last year, but the buyer was not named at the time, being provided to the FT by investigative journalism organisation SourceMaterial.
Billionaire Ma’s family has a vast portfolio of properties outside of China, but Chinese tech leaders routinely make such purchases through anonymous shell companies in the British Virgin Islands so as to keep a low profile.
Zhang last year reportedly paid about S$45m ($34.6m, £26m) for three adjoining commercial properties in Singapore and is the sole shareholder of a Hong Kong company that Ma used to buy a château and vineyards in France.
Using a chain of BVI shell companies, the Ma family also bought a lavish house on Hong Kong’s Victoria Peak in 2015 that previously served as the Belgian consul’s residence.
Controversial figure
After an October 2020 speech that angered Chinese regulators, Ma disappeared from view for several months and spent about two years largely outside the country, as his confrontational attitude spurred a broad crackdown on major tech firms in the country.
His return to public view in early 2023 was seen as signalling a more supportive attitude by the government toward big tech companies.
