China's Zetian Zhang and Richard Liu cop $3.7 million loss on sale of Sydney penthouse

China’s youngest female billionaire “Nancy” Zetian Zhang has sold her Sydney penthouse for $13.5 million, copping a multimillion-dollar loss on her Aussie bolthole.

Hotel baron Ramy Arnaout and his wife Nadia have emerged as the buyers, taking possession of the three-storey residence for $2.7 million less than Zhang paid for it new in 2015.

The Kann Finch-designed property was purchased in Zhang’s name for $16.2 million six months before she married China’s e-commerce billionaire and JD.com chief executive Richard Qiangdong Liu.

The apartment was new at the time, freeing Zhang to buy it without Foreign Investment Review Board approval, and incurred more than $1 million in stamp duty charges.

The photogenic Zhang was almost as famous as her husband when they wed after a 2009 image of her holding a cup of milk tea went viral, earning her the moniker Sister Milk Tea in China.

Now 25, she was listed in Chinese New Fortune magazine’s top 500 rich list last year, making her the youngest female billionaire in China.

But it is husband Liu who has dominated headlines in recent months after he came under investigation in the US on rape charges.

Four months after a young Chinese student at the University of Minnesota made sexual misconduct allegations against Liu, Minneapolis prosecutors dropped the case due to a lack of evidence.

Liu was again embroiled in a rape trial last year after he hosted an exclusive get-together at his wife’s Sydney penthouse and one of the guests, property developer Longwei “Tommy” Xu, was found guilty of raping a model after he left the party. Liu was not accused of any wrongdoing in the trial.

Zhang put the the four-bedroom apartment with Thomas Hamel interiors up for sale in June 2017 with $18 million hopes, but that price was revised to $15 million early last year when it was listed by Sotheby’s Richard Shalhoub.

Mr Shalhoub declined to comment on speculation the property had sold, but records show it was bought by Arnaout and his wife Nadia in a company name.

Arnaout co-founded the development and hospitality group Iris Capital with his brother Sam Arnaout, who bought the penthouse atop the Bennelong building behind the Opera House in 2015.

Liu and Zhang were regular visitors to Sydney when they bought the penthouse in 2015. At the time Liu’s Sydney residence was a waterfront mansion in Vaucluse – previously rented by Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio in 2011 – that was sold by his associate Huang Qiaorong last December for $38.8 million.