US tech billionaire Larry Ellison has bought an office building in London’s West End from a fugitive Hong Kong tycoon for £162 million.

Mr Ellison, co-founder of software giant Oracle and a close confidant of Sir Tony Blair, has bought 11-12 St James’s Square from Chinese Estates, a company linked to Joseph Lau, a fugitive Hong Kong tycoon, and his family.

The seven-story building was purchased by Mr. Ellison’s family office, the Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Trust, according to public records.

The purchase comes as Ellison, 80, opens a $1 billion research institute in Oxford to “help solve the world’s big problems.” It plans to invest in innovative new products such as advanced batteries and fund research to combat superbugs.

The Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) is led by scientist Sir John Bell and supported by former Prime Minister Sir Tony, with whom Mr. Ellison has had a decades-long friendship.

Sir John, known for his key role in the Covid vaccine rollout, told The Telegraph that the St James’s Square office building will be a base for EIT in London.

He said: “We needed a presence in London and St James’s is the closest location. It’s exactly what we needed – in a great location in London, close to Westminster, (in the countryside).

“This is a big step forward for us, we are very satisfied. It will be a busy hub trying to solve some of the world’s big problems.”

The seller of the office building is Chinese Estates, a company controlled by Mr. Lau and his family. Mr Lau, 73, earned an estimated fortune of $5.8bn (£4.8bn) from investing in property in Hong Kong and China. He has been living in Hong Kong since 2014 after a Macau court convicted him of bribery and money laundering. He was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison. There is no extradition agreement between the two self-governing regions.

Chinese Estates is in the process of selling its UK properties, including selling an office building in Mayfair for £125.4 million in August. Earlier this year, The Telegraph revealed that the company had put a £90 million mansion in Belgravia’s prestigious Eaton Square up for sale.

Mr Ellison, who stepped down as Oracle’s chief executive in 2014 but remains chairman and largest shareholder, has close ties to the UK.

He has been friends with Sir Tony since the Labor grandee was prime minister. Sir Tony and his family were pictured aboard Mr Ellison’s 288ft superyacht in Sardinia for a holiday in August. Mr Ellison is one of the richest men in the world, worth around $187.8 billion (£150 billion).

During the pandemic, the two worked together to develop a cloud-based system to manage vaccination programs in Africa.

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