The Abu Dhabi-based LuLu Group run by billionaire MA Yusuf Ali, who hails from the Indian State of Kerala, had bought the Great Scotland Yard, formerly of Scottish royalty, from Galliard Homes at 110 m pounds in 2015. The building was sold to Galliard Homes by the Defence Ministry in 2013 as part of emergency measures to raise funds. The Defence Ministry was using it as a library.

The Great Scotland Yard, originally of a medieval palace where the Scottish royalty used to stay while on visit to London, was later the eponymous address of the Whitehall headquarters of the London police from 1829 to 1890 and once used by them as the infamous Jack the Ripper investigative corner.

A 153-bedroom luxury lifestyle hotel, after spending a whopping 75 m pounds on renovation, is now ready for high-end hospitality service. A night at the iconic building costing something like 10,000 pounds.

The seven-storey building, referenced by Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, has inside the hotel secret doors that will lead to a whiskey bar and private dining rooms. The restaurant will have Alex Harper at the helm as executive chef. Basement cells meant for criminals have been converted into a gymnasium, conference rooms and a ballroom.

In medieval period, the Great Scotland Yard was the premises of the Scottish palace in London. When the London police was created in 1829, it opened its head office in Whitehall area, and it had an entrance from Great Scotland Yard. So the police came to be identified with Scotland Yard. In 1890 a new police headquarters was formed on Thames Embankments and named New Scotland Yard. And in 1967, again the head office was shifted to a new building in Broadway junction, again called New Scotland Yard. Now in 2016 it has come back to Thameside at Curtis Green Building on Victoria Embankment, north of Westminster Bridge, and continues with the head office name, New Scotland Yard.