Billionaire Ken Griffin buys New York penthouse for $238 million, the most expensive US home ever sold

• Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin closed a deal to buy the most expensive home ever sold in the U.S., paying around $238 million for a New York penthouse overlooking Central Park.
• The deal is the latest in Griffin's unprecedented global shopping spree for real estate.

Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin closed a deal to buy the most expensive home ever sold in the U.S., paying around $238 million for a New York penthouse overlooking Central Park.

The deal is the largest in Griffin's recent $700 million global real estate shopping spree, believed to be the largest ever for a U.S. billionaire. Over the past few years, the founder and CEO of Citadel has purchased the most expensive homes in Chicago, Miami and New York. He has spent more than $200 million to buy land in Palm Beach, Florida, for a home he plans to build there. And this week, news broke that he purchased a $122 million property in London, which was the most expensive sale in that city in a decade.

A spokeswoman for Citadel couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

The New York purchase, first reported by CNBC in 2015 when it went into contract, covers several floors of the new 79-story condo tower known as 220 Central Park South. The apartment covers four full floors and is around 24,000 square feet with stunning views of Central Park, according to real estate experts. Griffin bought the space raw, which means that even after paying $238 million, Griffin will likely spend millions more to design, build and furnish the home.

The deal eclipses the current record for the most expensive home sold in the U.S. — the $147 million paid by hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein for an estate in East Hampton, New York, in 2014.

With new condo towers, like 220 Central Park South, buyers sign a contract while the building is under construction, and officially close on the deal when the building is finished.

The Alexander Team at Douglas Elliman represented Griffin in the sale and Deborah Kern of the Corcoran Group represented Vornado Realty Trust, the building's developer.