Igor Bukhman, co-founder of gaming titan Playrix, has acquired a London mansion adjacent to one of his existing luxury residences.
Last summer, the billionaire invested approximately £24 million ($30.6 million) in the Kensington property, which stands next to a mansion he purchased for over £45 million in 2019, as per sources familiar with the transaction and government filings. This acquisition marks the second phase of Bukhman’s plan to renovate the two houses.
Bukhman, hailing from a city nearly 300 miles north of Moscow, boasts a net worth of about $3.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Playrix, the mobile game development giant co-founded by Bukhman and his brother Dmitry in the early 2000s, witnessed a surge in user count during the pandemic.
A spokesperson for Bukhman declined to comment on the matter.
Despite global central banks raising interest rates, London’s luxury real estate market has remained relatively robust. In 2023, affluent overseas buyers splurged over £100 million on properties in the British capital, with Kensington accounting for 11% of all £5 million-plus deals across the city, as reported by broker Savills Plc.
Other notable transactions include Solina Chau, co-founder of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s venture arm, who acquired a luxury flat next to Green Park for £20.5 million in August last year — one of the capital’s largest apartment deals of 2023. Citadel trader Adam Frame and Xu Xiaoping, a prominent Chinese angel investor, also purchased London properties last summer, each valued at roughly £40 million.
While such transactions highlight a seemingly robust top-end market, the luxury segment presents a somewhat mixed picture. Sales in London’s most affluent postcodes fell by about a third in November compared to the same period a year earlier, according to researcher LonRes.
Nonetheless, today’s billionaires — many of whom operate in finance and tech — typically allocate about a third of their total wealth to residential real estate, according to a report by Beauchamp Estates. Furthermore, the number of super-rich individuals is projected to increase by 28% by 2026, the broker stated.
The Bukhman brothers have rapidly expanded their investments beyond Playrix, which employs thousands worldwide. Their personal investment firm, Rix Capital, recently established its first permanent office in central London.
Playrix relocated its headquarters to Ireland around a decade ago and shuttered its operations in the brothers’ home country and Belarus in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Playrix ranked as the world’s third-largest mobile game publisher by revenue in 2022, according to marketing agency Udonis.