Sky’s the limit at world’s priciest penthouse

Monaco, the tax haven on the French Riviera, is experiencing a luxury-housing boom that includes the world’s most expensive penthouse, as developers prepare for an influx of millionaires and billionaires escaping higher taxes or a loss of banking privacy.

A “flow” of new residents is emigrating from Switzerland, where financial secrecy laws are crumbling, said Jean Claude Caputo, managing director of broker Savills’ (SVS) French Riviera unit.

They’re drawn by the principality’s “security, sophistication and climate,” he said — as well as for financial reasons. The Swiss government signed an accord in May to automatically share bank data across borders.

New levies on luxury homes in London and a US-led global crackdown on hiding assets will also probably attract the affluent to Monaco, which already counts pop stars, Formula One drivers and Russian billionaires among its inhabitants.

One in three of Monaco’s 38,000 residents are millionaires, according to a study by Spear’s magazine and WealthInsight.

As that number increases, home values will rise by about a fifth by June 2015, according to Savills. That would almost erase losses sustained since the market’s 2007 peak.

The Tour Odeon, a €600m double-skyscraper being built by Groupe Marzocco SAM near Monaco’s Mediterranean seafront, will contain a 3,300 square metre (35,500 square-foot) penthouse with a water slide connecting a dance floor to an open-air swimming pool.

The apartment may sell for more than €300m when it goes on the market next year. That would make it the world’s most expensive penthouse.

“We think we can get a little bit more,” said Daniele Marzocco, a director at the company.

So far, the developer has found buyers for 26 of the 36 luxury homes that have been offered for sale. A car parking space at the project costs €250,000.

The Tour Odeon will be Monaco’s first high-rise since the 1980s. A quarter of the apartments sold on the open market by Groupe Marzocco have gone to expatriates from the former Soviet Union, the company said.

The lower floors were sold to Monaco’s government for use by local citizens, who will enter through a separate entrance.

Monaco will have to further expand into the sea and build more residential skyscrapers like Tour Odeon to cater to the expected influx of wealthy buyers, according to a May report by Savills.