According to The Wall Street Journal, Micheal Jackson’s famous 2,700-acre Southern California ranch has been sold for $22 million, a quarter of it first estimated value of $100m to billionaire Ron Burkle. 
Ron Burkle who is valued by Forbes to be worth 1.5 billion dollars, was a close friend of MJ, who helped him manage his money in the mid-2000s, according to the Journal.
Ron who co-owns the NHL outfit Pittsburgh Penguins. Micheal Jackson’s Neverland was first put on the market back in 2015, for a whooping 100 million dollars, but has now been sold 6-years on after Micheal’s death.
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Colony Capital, a real estate investment firm, owned the Los Olivos, California, property under a 2008 agreement with Jackson.
Subsequent attempts to sell the ranch also flopped, until Burkle was flying over the area and saw it, the Journal reported. He called Colony’s founder Tom Barrack and offered to buy Neverland, even though it wasn’t on the market.
Neverland has undergone various renovations since Jackson’s death, including the removal of its famous amusement park rides.
The property still has 22 buildings, including a 12,000-square-foot mansion. Jackson bought Neverland in 1987 but said he never returned to the place following his 2005 trial on child molestation charges. Although he was acquitted, Jackson said the ranch carried bad memories.
A 2019 documentary, “Leaving Neverland,” followed two men who said Jackson sexually abused them on the ranch when they were children. Burkle bought the property as an investment and has no plans to live there, the Journal reported.
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