Hundreds bid for a piece of the prince

Gold toilet brushes are just part of the trove at the prince's auction

By staff and wires

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei -- One of the world's most bizarre and glittering debtor auctions continued on Sunday, with hundreds vying for the ornate excesses of a playboy prince from Brunei.

Some 10,000 items owned by Prince Jefri Bolkiah, the extravagant but now bankrupt brother of Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, are going under the hammer as part of a six-day auction.

The first day saw some $280,000 worth of goods snapped up by bargain-hunting bidders, with a dry cleaning unit topping the day's bidding at $35,000.

Items that had been passed over on Saturday consisted mainly of bathroom fittings and toiletries, including a golden toilet roll holder, and gym equipment.

British auctioneers Smith and Hodgkinson were reported as saying the first day's sales had gone beyond expectations, and more of the same was expected Sunday.

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Taxi driver Lim Ah Kiong, who looked over the items on display, issued a verdict common among the attending bidders: "So expensive, so wasteful."

Gilded trash bins

A bidder makes a call and the six-day event begins

Bidders walked past rows of gold-plated Jacuzzis and showerheads, porcelain flamingo statues and gilded trash bins. "Now, it has brought shame to Brunei," the Associated Press quoted Kiong as saying.

For decades, the Brunei royal family has figured in the lists of the world's richest people, coffers topped up by oil and gas reserves in their tiny enclave on Borneo island in Southeast Asia.

Their profligacy has been legendary, from hotels purchased in Singapore, London and Paris for use on frequent trips abroad, to flying in beauty queens from all over the world for parties on yachts.

But Saturday, playboy Prince Jefri was selling instead of buying, taking a step toward cleaning up mountains of debt -- a legacy of the Asian economic crisis in 1997-98 that nearly drove the country to bankruptcy.

Local and international creditors still smarting from fizzled construction projects and dud investments hope to recover at least part of their losses from the auction.

"We expect virtually everything to go," Mark Isaacs, a senior official in Smith Hodgkinson, the British auction group organizing the event, told the AP. "They are very salable items."

Billions owed

The auction of items belonging to Jefri's bankrupt development corporation, Amedeo, is expected to raise up to $50 million, just a small portion of the billions owed to local and foreign creditors.

Public tenders and negotiations with selected parties are being worked out to dispose of a multi-million-dollar marquee complex and simulators for a Comanche helicopter, an Airbus jet and a Formula 1 racing car.

John Chia, Singaporean businessman based in Brunei, lost 10 bids, mostly on furniture and for a bronze-plated, eight-foot high Trojan horse, which went for $1,470.

"I am just trying to buy something simple like a sofa seat," said Singaporean businessman Othman Ali. "It is more of the novelty of buying something linked to the royalty."

For years, Amedeo had been the vehicle for Brunei to put in place much of the modern infrastructure it now has -- a sports stadium, international convention center, golf course, hotels, marina, hospital and roads.

The auction has triggered debate among Brunei's 300,000 people -- most of whom live on the oil money paid out by the sultan in the form of civil service jobs -- over who is to blame for Amedeo's collapse.

'Scapegoat' prince

The prince "was lavish, but he also brought development," remarked businessman Hairi Mohamad Yusuf. "He is being made the scapegoat."

The auction follows a lawsuit brought against Jefri last year for the disappearance of $16 billion from national coffers. In an out-of-court settlement, the prince agreed to return money taken from the national investment agency, once under his charge.

The prince now lives in London and Paris. Creditors have tried, and failed, to serve him in another multi-million-dollar civil action.