Living royally

It’s good to be a prince:

It may be billed as “the greatest listing in the world” but Hala Ranch in the Rocky Mountains is proving hard to shift. With a price tag of $135m (…£68m), the ranch is also the most expensive home put on the US market.

It is owned by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the man at the heart of the …£1bn corruption inquiry into BAE Systems, who until last year was Saudi ambassador to the US. His visits to the US are less frequent nowadays, perhaps because he is concerned that allegations that millions of dollars in kickbacks flowed into his US bank account could trigger a criminal inquiry here. Prince Bandar flatly denies the accusations.

Despite 1,000 requests to view the 95-acre estate since it was put up for sale last October, the mountain retreat just north-west of the exclusive resort of Aspen remains on the market.

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