• Lily Safra is making a move at 820 Fifth Avenue. The billionaire widow of Edmond Safra and longtime resident of the tony co-op building has sold her 12th-floor apartment for $40 million to Ken Griffin, the CEO of Chicago-based Citadel Investment Group. She won't be moving far. Property records indicate Safra paid $33 million to buy developer Ara Hovnanian's apartment on the 4th-floor, so she'll only be moving downstairs. [Real Deal]
• Stephen Rotella, the former president and chief operating officer of Washington Mutual, may be preparing to move back east. Earlier this year, Rotella sold his mansion in Seattle for $4.7 million; now he's paid a similar amount for an apartment in New York. Rotella and his wife, Esther, put down $4.1 million for a two-bedroom co-op at 101 Central Park West. The 2,200-square-foot apartment was first listed last year for $5.95 million. [Cityfile]
• Josh Grotstein, the CEO of the video sharing site Motionbox and a co-founder of the venture capital firm SAS Investors, is moving. He and his wife Leslie sold their apartment at 300 East 77th Street for $2.75 million. [Cityfile]

• Marty Sprinzen, the founder of Forte Software, which was sold to Sun Microsystems for $540 million in 1999, has put his 4,552-square-foot apartment at 838 Fifth Avenue up for sale. The ninth-floor residence, which was once owned by Lily Safra and is one floor below the apartment Jimmy Nederlander bought in 2006—is now on the market for $24.5 million. [Cityfile, BHS]
• Seymour Zises, founder of the investment advisory firm Family Management, and his wife Cathy, have gone into contract to sell their second-floor apartment at 1016 Fifth Avenue. The five-bedroom co-op had most recently been listed for $10.95 million. [Cityfile, Stribling]
• William Little Jr., the chairman of George Little Management, the trade show production company founded by his father, has paid $6.64 million for a 16th-floor apartment at 170 East End Avenue. [Cityfile]

Take a gander at the most expensive residential real estate purchase in history. An unnamed Russian billionaire is paying $748 million for Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera, acquiring the property from Lily Safra, the widow of Edmond Safra. What do you get for all that cash? In addition to everything else, you inherit a staff of 50 full-time gardeners. [NYP]