Brunei's auction rakes in over $1m

Brunei's auction rakes in over $1m

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (AFP): Brunei has raked in more than two million Brunei dollars (US$1.1 million) from an auction of assets owned by the disgraced younger brother of its ruler Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, British auctioneers Smith and Hodgkinson said on Tuesday.

The auctioneers are scheduled to complete the sale of the general items on Tuesday, the fourth day of the six-day auction which began Saturday, he said. The sale has been dubbed the "mother of all auctions."

Some 10,000 items from gold-plated toilet paper holders to helicopter simulators belonging to a bankrupt firm of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, the former finance minister, are on the block.

As many as 600 people were browsing through the items in the heavily guarded former plaster cast factory of Amedeo Development Corp., the flagship company of Prince Jefri which collapsed under a mountain of debt three years ago, Isaacs said.