Nick Candy eyes payday after £275m home sale to Labour donor
Reform UK fundraiser Nick Candy is looking to cash in on his assets after it was revealed that he sold his £275m home to a former Labour donor in what was put down as the largest house purchase in history.
Quadrature Capital’s Suneil Setiya bought the hidden Chelsea mansion from Candy, according to the Financial Times.
The deal was first reported in Bloomberg but the buyer was not revealed.
Candy has given Nigel Farage’s Reform UK regular payments totalling nearly £1m over the last year.
Meanwhile, Setiya’s quantitative trading company gave Labour a payment worth £4m shortly before it got elected into office in 2024.
Candy’s podcast firm Audioboom, which includes Pod Save America and F1 Nation, has now revealed it is in talks to sell the company.
The London-listed outfit is ranked as the fifth-biggest podcast publisher in the US by Edison Research.
It put itself up for sale in October amid a “strategic review”. The process included sourcing capital to fund takeovers itself.
But Tuesday’s announcement confirmed it was in discussions with potential bidders.
Candy is Audioboom’s biggest shareholder. Its sale would represent yet another sweet deal for him, with the company posting annual revenue of around £60m.
Candy’s £275m house sale
Candy’s former home, Providence House, is in Royal Hospital Chelsea, a retirement home for veterans.
It has views of the River Thames, features a lake and is a Grade II listed building. Reports also suggest it has a private cinema, underground swimming pool and a panic room.
It was also once the home of Sir Robert Walpole, the first prime minister.
The house sale was higher than what American billionaire Ken Griffin paid for when he bought a New York penthouse for around £186m.
It also beat a London house deal bought by Chinese property investor Hui Ka Yan at a price of around £210m in 2020.
Reform UK links
Candy became more widely known for his donations to the Conservatives and supporting the One Hyde Park, the apartment complex which boasted the most expensive square foot in the world.
He is now a prominent figure within Reform UK’s political ranks, leading the party’s fundraising activities and working closely alongside Nigel Farage to build ties with figures in the City.
He is the party’s treasurer and has been seen at various key party events.
Candy wrote last month that he felt safer in Dubai than in London despite the war in the Middle East.
In an article for the Daily Mail, he said: “The dithering of the UK government saddens me but it doesn’t shock me. The real surprise is that Iran would be stupid enough to launch hostilities against the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia.