BeachClubExpert.com 1.305-432.4860

An investment company linked to a little-known Russian fertilizer billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev, has agreed to pay $100 million to Donald Trump for a Palm Beach, Fla., mansion called Maison de l’Amitié.

The Trump Organization

Mr. Rybolovlev is paying $100 million for Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion, Maison de l’Amitie.

If the deal closes in the next few weeks, as planned, it is likely to be the most expensive sale of a U.S. single-family home. “This is the highest price ever paid for a house. And I think it’s a bargain,” said Mr. Trump.

The developer paid $41.4 million for the estate at a bankruptcy-court auction in 2004 and did a cosmetic renovation. Some brokers describe the house as a teardown, saying the property, among Palm Beach’s largest parcels, would be more valuable if subdivided.

The 33,000-square-foot French Regency-style mansion, built in 1990, sits on 6.5 acres with 475 feet on the ocean. Mr. Trump announced the home’s then-record $125 million asking price three years ago, then switched brokers in March and cut the price to $100 million.

Mr. Rybolovlev, born in 1966, is one of Russia’s richest and most discreet businessmen. Since 1996, he has been the chairman of JSC Uralkali, a major fertilizer maker. The Forbes list of the world’s billionaires places him at No. 59, with an estimated net worth of $12.8 billion.

“This acquisition is simply an investment in real estate by one of the companies in which I have an interest,” Mr. Rybolovlev said in a statement released by Alan Basiev, the head spokesman for Uralkali. It “does not represent a decision by me to live in the U.S.”

He said the company in the Trump deal is one of a number in which he has interests world-wide and that its managers had decided the deal “would be a good investment decision.” Mr. Rybolovlev received a degree in medical care from Perm Medical Institute in 1990.

Mr. Trump publicly confirmed the deal last month, saying the buyer was Russian but declining to name him. Lawrence Moens, a Palm Beach broker, had the listing. In 2007, investor Ron Baron paid $103 million for two adjacent vacant parcels in New York’s Hamptons.