Candys' worst bet

The British brothers Nick and Christian Candy get a mostly puffy and credulous profile on Bloomberg - the private jet, the private yacht (to be christened Candyscape II), the black Maybach, blah, blah, blah. But even this cozy piece makes mention of 9900 Wilshire, what was to be their eight-acre luxury hotel/condo project on the site of the old Robinsons-May Department store next to the Bev Hilton. If anything truly epitomized the out-of-control real estate market, it was the $500 million purchase of this property from New Pacific Realty - only $466.5 million more than what New Pacific had paid just three years earlier.

The Candys insisted it would be all right, but of course it wasn't. The property is now being valued by developer CPC Group (owned by Chris Candy) at less than $200 million (no doubt a lot less). It was put into default earlier this year and anyone involved with 9900 Wilshire was let go. "We are disappointed to be losing some of our talented and dedicated employees," Nick Candy said in a press release (via CurbedLA). At last check they were squabbling with lenders - well, at least when they weren't living it up in Tuscany or Monaco. From the Bloomberg story:

By lunchtime, the brothers are on the Tyrrhenian Sea near Viareggio, Italy, inspecting the boat with a team from Candy & Candy Ltd., their London-based interior design company. The living room features a custom-made, glass player piano activated by remote. Showers have waterproof plasma-TV screens built into their marble walls. "This will be the best 62-meter yacht literally anywhere in the world," said Chris Candy, 35, referring to the 203-foot-long vessel. Nick is 36.

In time for dinner, their jet whisks the British-born brothers to Monaco, where they live together in a 1,626-square-meter, or 17,500-square-foot, 30-room duplex penthouse that formerly belonged to the late financier Edmond Safra. The Candys see their yacht and apartment as showcases for the style they can provide their clients, who include the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, the Australian pop star Kylie Minogue, the American actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Vanisha Mittal, the daughter of the Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal.