Meet Sultan of Brunei, the man willing to shell out more than $2 bn for Sahara's hotels

The controversial Sultan of Brunei is reportedly eyeing theSahara Group’sassets abroad and is willing to dole out awhopping $2 billion for the three hotels that the Indian group owns in New York and London.

>Ironically, the Sultan’sBeverly Hills Hotel and Dorchester Collection properties in the United States have been subject to a boycott by many, including Hollywood personalities, following the Sharia penal code – which levies harsh punishments like flogging, the severing of limbs, and death by stoning for homosexualsand adulterers – that was instituted in the country of Brunei in early May.

The laws, have fuelled public calls in the United States for the Sultan to sell its properties while theboycott of the Beverly Hills Hotel and other Dorchester properties in Europe, have costing the luxury hotel operator millions of dollars in lost revenue.

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Here are 5 things you should know about the Sultan

1. Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, 62, is worth a whopping $20 billion. His wealth is based on the country’s oil andgas reserves. Bolkiah has been Brunei’s sultan and prime minister since 1967, and he appoints virtually all of Brunei’s ruling bodies, including the Legislative Council and the Supreme and Sharia Courts.His sultanate is one of the world’s most financially affluent where people do not have to pay any kind of income tax.

2. He lives in a fancy crib: The Sultan lives in a 1,800-room palace called the Istana Nurul Iman, which is one of the world’s largest private residences. His house has 257 bathrooms, five swimming pools, a mosque, a banquet hall that can hold5,000 people and a 110-car garage. In fact on his 50th birthday, the Sultan invited Michael Jackson to perform in his stadium and paid him $17 million for three concerts, according to the New York Post.

**3.He loves cars:**The Sultan’s passion for the world’s most expensive, beautiful, rarest and fastest cars knows no boundaries. His personal collection o f over 7,000 high performance cars, which by some estimates is worth more than $5 billion, includes 600 Rolls Royce cars, over 300 Ferraris,134 Koenigseggs, 11 McLaren F1s, 6 Dauer 962 LMs and a number of Jaguars. Certain brands like Ferrari, Bugatti, Bentley and Royal-Royce make new cars exclusively for him that are not sold in the market.

He is also famous for having some of the most luxuriously customized private jets like Boeing 747-400 and Airbus 340-200.

**4. Even his brother can spend:** In July 2011, Vanity Fair wrote a detailed article about outrageous spending habits and lifestyle of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, brother of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah. Among other titbits, the profile said Prince Jefri owned over2,300 cars and a yacht named Tits with tenders called Nipple 1 and Nipple 2 and had aharem of Western models. According to the report, he had once given a necklace to of hisconsorts that she later auctioned off for $100,000 at Christie’s!

At one point, Jefri Bolkiah was reportedly spending $50 million a month until his assets were frozen after authorities discovered that hehad personally blown through $14.8 billion from a government oil investment fund he was purportedly overseeing. The Sultan, himself wascaught up in a court battle in 2007, in which he was accused of backing out of a deal with Australian businessmen to splash out 4 million on a gold-lined miniature Koran.

5. He wanted a world class harem: It’s ironic that the Sultan has imposted the Sharia law in Brunei forwhen the brothers partied, they indulged in just about everything forbidden under it.

“Afforded four wives by Islamic law, they left their multiple spouses and scores of children in their palaces while they allegedly sent emissaries to comb the globe for the sexiest women they could find in order to create a harem the likes of which the world had never known,” the Vanity Fair article said.

Clearly, the $2 billion for Sahara’s hotels won’t make a dent in theSultan’s fortune but it remains to be seen whether the beleaguered Subrata Roy will hold out for a bigger offer.