When it comes to financial assets, Apollo's legendary founder Leon Black has been gloomy for years, and said in a recent Milken Conference that his firm has been "selling everything that is not nailed down." The billionaire (who at last check was worth around $4.7 billion) however appears to have a soft spot for Hollywood A-lister real estate. Because we were surprised to learn that the buyer of Tom Cruise's $40 million 10,000 square foot Beverly Hills home is none other than Leon Black.
As TMZ reports, Tom Cruise has decided to leave Los Angeles because he's saying goodbye to the estate he called home for nearly a decade.
Tom has sold the mansion he shared with Katie Holmes for $40 million. Cruise first offered the house for $50 million in September 2015, and then lowered the price to $45 million but could find no buyers at even the reduced price. Nonetheless, he still cashed in: he bought the house from real estate guru Kurt Rappaport, who owed it back in 2007, for $32.5 million.
As for the house, it has 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, a tennis court, a swimming pool (of course), a children's playground and a couple of guesthouses. The heavily fortified, 1.3-acre spread includes a roomy motor court with swimming-pool-sized fountain, a lighted tennis court with basketball hoops, a lap-length swimming pool, a children’s playground, and a couple of guesthouses.
Meanwhile, the world's most famous scientologist is clearly getting out of the city of angles: Cruise recently sold a Hollywood Hills compound back in October for $11.4 million to Eva Longoria.
And this is what $40 million will buy any self-respecting private equity billionaires.