Icelandic Billionaire Buys One of Manhattan's Most Luxurious Penthouses (GALLERY)

An Icelandic billionaire, Jon Asgeir Johannesson has just bought a $16 million penthouse duplex in Ian Schrager’s 50 Gramercy Park North Development, negotiating the price down to mere $10 million dollars. But that’s not all. Last December Johannesson bought the $10 million apartment below and plans to combine them into a 8.000 square feet triplex penthouse worth over $26 million dollars!

The apartments in Ian Schrager’s development offer an unprecedented level of luxury, offering full service from the Gramercy Park Hotel and with New York’s only private park, the Gramercy Park as their back yard.

But who is this 39 year old billionaire from Iceland, Jon Asgeir Johannesson? He is a business mogul who runs the Baugur Group, Iceland’s biggest conglomerate. In recent years Baugur has been buying up many major brands in the UK and Scandinavia like Hamleys, Iceland, Oasis, Karen Millen, House of Fraser and more, becoming the fastest growing retail company in the world. Not much has been written about Johannesson in the US, but this purchase supports rumors that the USA is where this viking from Iceland plans to break ground in the upcoming years, starting with a new free daily newspaper in Boston last week. Ten more cities are said to be on the target list for the next three years for free daily news papers and who knows what his plans are for the New York fashion industry.