Rybolovlev, whose fortune has soared by $10 billion in the last year on an unprecedented boom in demand for fertilizers, said through a spokesman that the purchase was an investment and that he had no plans to swap Moscow life for the Florida coast.
Trump more than doubled his money on the sale of Maison de l'Amitie, a 3,000-square-meter mansion on Palm Beach bought for $41.4 million at a bankruptcy auction in 2004, The Wall Street Journal said.
The price, however, was still $25 million below that at which Trump first offered the house for sale, the newspaper said.
Rybolovlev, 41, made his fortune from the potash mines of the Ural Mountains. London-traded stock in his Uralkali mining company has doubled in value this year. "For many years, my main business interests have been in the potash industry, but I also have many interests in a range of companies all around the world," Rybolovlev said.
"These companies operate in different fields of business. In particular, one of them makes investments in real estate," he said in comments e-mailed through a spokesman.
"This acquisition is simply an investment in real estate by one of the companies in which I have an interest and does not represent a decision by me to live in the U.S. ?€” indeed, neither my family nor I have any intention to do so," he said.
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