The first purchase French made was in July 2020, when he spent $32.5 million on a Beverly Hills tennis court estate. A local hedge fund manager, Jonathan Brooks, purchased the property in 2006 for about $25 million from Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. In addition to being designed by Wallace Neff, the two-parcel compound was once owned by actors Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, and Wallis Annenberg.
Aniston and Pitt renovated the Beverly Hills mansion with A-list-style renovations during their marriage, including installing heated black-and-white marble floors in the kitchen, circa 1805 wood floors imported from France in the lounge, and installing a state-of-the-art movie theater. French made a lowball offer after Brooks aggressively lowered his asking price to $44.5 million from $56 million.
The jetsetter spent another $25.5 million on a lavish oceanfront home in Malibu in September 2021, when French visited there. As a result, Jonathan Brooks, who bought the Encinal Bluffs villa from Nicolas Cage in 2005 for nearly $10 million, once again sold it. Brooks rebuilt and expanded the former Cage hideaway over the course of 17 years, transforming it into a slick contemporary with “five-star resort-like” amenities, according to the listing. Brooks had publicly sought $30 million for his Malibu house before the deal closed off-market.
French, 51, has worked in finance and for top investment banking and private equity firms nearly his entire adult life, mostly in New York City and beginning at PricewaterhouseCoopers. As a managing director, he has served as a governing partner and portfolio manager of HPS Investment Partners, a global investment firm with $75 billion in assets under management. Although his personal net worth is unknown, he is clearly wealthy.
Although the Beverly Hills and Malibu properties are luxurious, they aren’t even close to being French’s most expensive homes. According to records, the Florida resident bought a $64 million oceanfront house on Palm Beach’s super-prime South Ocean Boulevard last August using another shell company called Beechgreen LLC. Despite few renovations, French flipped that “Billionaires’ Row” mansion back on the market a few weeks ago — asking $115 million. The home is still on the market.
Brooks and his family have recently moved into a new mansion they had custom-built in the exclusive Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles.
