The deal was concluded in May 2024
The billionaire Poonawalla family has purchased a £42 million townhouse in Mayfair despite the Government’s crackdown on non-doms.
The property is located in Grosvenor Square, around the corner from their Mayfair home.
Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster’s property company, which owns much of Mayfair, has granted a long lease on the building to Phinity Developers Ltd, a company controlled by Natasha Poonawalla.
Ms Poonawalla is a fashion influencer and an executive director at the family’s Serum Institute of India, which manufactured hundreds of millions of doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
The business has also invested millions of pounds into vaccine research and production in Oxford.
The deal was concluded in May 2024 and it came despite concerns that changes to the UK’s non-dom tax rules would put off wealthy international investors.
Ms Poonawalla’s husband Adar had criticised the Government’s attempt to tighten non-dom tax rules.
At the time, he told the Financial Times: “At the top level, the policy should be such that it encourages large groups and individuals to come and invest and stay in the UK.
“Instead of doing that, you’re making rules which would make people stay away.”
Non-dom rules allow UK residents with a permanent home overseas to avoid UK tax on their international income and gains.
Labour will abolish the regime in 2025, which will hit the UK’s wealthiest residents.
Mr Poonawalla, the chief executive of the Serum Institute, said that although he did not spend enough time in the UK to be impacted by the tax changes, his wife is likely to lose out.
He added: “Some people are willing to pay that cost like I am, but most others aren’t… They can easily move out.”
Since coming to power, Labour has vowed to abolish non-dom status by April 2025, building on a previous crackdown by the Conservatives.
The Serum Institute was founded in Pune by Cyrus Poonawalla in 1966.
The Poonawalla family is one of India’s richest, worth an estimated £19.4 billion.
The Grosvenor Square townhouse is near Hyde Park’s Aberconway House, which the family bought for £138 million in 2023.
Built in 1727, the property was used as an aristocratic residence before becoming home to the Indonesian Embassy in 1950, following the country’s independence.
The five-storey, 27,000 sq ft building has not had a full-time tenant since 2017 but has been used to host events.
It was advertised as a “blank canvas” for commercial redevelopment.
Features include a courtyard garden and 18th-century decorated ceilings in the style of Robert Adam.
The property is described as one of the “last remaining buildings from the square’s original date of construction”.
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