Bill Gates, who co-owns Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts with a Saudi prince, is investing in a palace in Rome that he plans to turn into an opulent six-star hotel.
According to paperwork shown at Rome’s City Hall, Four Seasons has made a $21 million down payment toward the $170 million purchase price of the spacious 17th-century Palazzo Marini, which is only a short distance from the Trevi Fountain.
Gates, through his Cascade Investment LLC, owns a minority stake in Four Seasons alongside Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who is regarded as Saudi Arabia’s Warren Buffett.
Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding Company has made millions investing in companies such as Uber, Citigroup and Lyft, and the firm is one of the outside financial backers of Elon Musk’s pending Twitter buyout.
In 2007, Cascade and KHC first joined together to take Four Seasons private. Cascade increased its ownership in the joint venture to 71.25 percent in January by spending $2.21 billion to acquire half of KHC’s previous 47.5 percent interest.
KHC now has a 23.75 percent share in Four Seasons as a result.
Isadore Sharp, who founded Four Seasons and serves as its chairman, also has a 5% share in the exclusive hotel brand.
Before Saudi Arabia’s public wealth fund bought a 16.87 percent interest for $1.5 billion last month, Alwaleed, 67, had long maintained a tight hold on the Kingdom’s shares, controlling all except the 5 percent listed on the Saudi stock market.
On Monday night, when asked about the Four Seasons’ plans for the Palazzo Marini, a spokesman did not react right away.
According to all reports, Four Seasons will have a difficult time turning Rome’s expansive Palazzo Marini into the city’s first six-star hotel.
The complex consists of four separate blocks and takes up one side of the Piazza San Silvestro in central Rome.
Several years ago, much of the ground floor was converted into a pop-up Ikea store selling affordable home goods to Rome’s urban dwellers.
The top floors serve as a cafeteria for members of the nearby lower chamber of the Italian parliament.
However, the structure enjoys a desirable site for luring tourists, being close to the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and Via Condotti, the main retail street in Rome.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini began work on the palazzo in 1650, but he never finished it. Over the years, it was inhabited by a number of nobility.
At one point, Pope Innocent XII acquired control of the structure and turned it into the Pontifical Tribunal’s administrative center.
But in recent years the property has languished after real estate developer Sergio Scarpellini unloaded in a fire sale following his 2016 arrest on bribery charges.
A fund snapped up the palazzo from Scarpellini as part of an $800 million bundle of properties, and several developers had shown interest until the COVID-19 pandemic decimated Rome’s tourist trade.
Now, Four Seasons plans to spend $120 million renovating the building, according to the purchase papers reported by the Daily Beast, which are only visible in person at Rome’s city hall.
The luxury hotel is expected to have about 100 rooms, and could include space for a conference center, gym and spa.
Four Seasons has an existing portfolio of 122 hotels and resorts and 48 residential properties in 47 countries around the world.
The company announced in January that it has more than 50 new projects under planning or development, including in Italy, Spain, China, Japan, Colombia, Belize and across key markets in the US.