As written in Bloomberg on April 19, 2020
Amy’s highlights of this article: So fascinating to read that New Zealand is quickly becoming a doomsday destination for mega-rich Americans. New Zealand is an enemy of no one. With its reputation for safety and beauty, it has become a popular destination for the wealthy to seek refuge. New Zealand has been praised recently for their method of handling the pandemic making it the perfect place for the world’s powerful and elite to build their luxury bunkers. The trend of billionaires buying property here isn’t new - but the mega-rich bunker owner never had any use for them - until now.
In this article read about the extreme lengths the super rich will go ensure they are safe during a global pandemic. Say doomsday bunker and most people would think a concrete room filled with cots and canned goods. Think again, that is not even close to what you will find here.
As coronavirus infections tore across the U.S. in early March, a Silicon Valley executive called the survival shelter manufacturer Rising S Co. He wanted to know how to open the secret door to his multimillion-dollar bunker 11 feet underground in New Zealand”.
The tech chief had never used the bunker and couldn’t remember how to unlock it, said Gary Lynch, general manager of Texas-based Rising S Co. “He wanted to verify the combination for the door and was asking questions about the power and the hot water heater and whether he needed to take extra water or air filters,” Lynch said. The businessman runs a company in the Bay Area but lives in New York, which was fast becoming the world’s coronavirus epicenter.
“He went out to New Zealand to escape everything that’s happening,” Lynch said, declining to identify the bunker owner because he keeps his client lists private. “And as far as I know, he’s still there.”
For years, New Zealand has featured prominently in the doomsday survival plans of wealthy Americans worried that, say, a killer germ might paralyze the world. Isolated at the edge of the earth, more than 1,000 miles off the southern coast of Australia, New Zealand is home to about 4.9 million people, about a fifth as many as the New York metro area. The clean, green, island nation is known for its natural beauty, laid-back politicians and premier health facilities.