For the eye-poppingly rich, Nakheel, the property group at the centre of Dubai's debt crisis, promised the unimaginable.

The World, its most famous project, boasted exactly that. In 2004, it unveiled plans for a jigsaw of 300 private islands in the warm waters of the Gulf, to create a country-by-country replica of the entire planet.

Spain was up for £20 million, Sweden £9 million and Iraq £7 million.

Five years on and the real estate group is basking in an entirely different spotlight: it is at the centre of Dubai's financial mess, and sales of its assets are likely.

Its key properties include:

The World

The most famous and ambitious of Nakheel's projects, the World, Nakheel promised, would "allow investors to make the world their own." Megalomaniacs could pay from £5 million to £20 million for a piece of the "globe", which was recreated in 300 private islands in the waters of the Gulf.

Those who had brought an island then had free reign to build on it. They had only to prove that their project was safe and environmentally sound.

Early investors included a Dutchman who bought the unpartitioned island of Ireland and transported an Irish castle stone-by-stone to the Gulf.

The group also planned to market a dozen "celebrity islands" that would bear the name of the person who bought them.

Work on the project has effectively been abandoned.

The Palm Jumeirah

David Beckham and Brad Pitt were among celebrities said to have brought properties in the Palm Jumeirah. The 2,000 villas and townhouses on the luxury development, which is in the shape of a palm, were snapped up within a month when they went on sale in 2002.

Last year Joe Cole, the footballer, sold his villa on the development for about $3.5 million.

Buoyed by its success with the project, Nakheel announced soon after plans for two similar island developments, the Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira.

Nakheel claimed that the Palm Deira would be the world's largest reclaimed island, with more than one million people eventually living or working there.

The Atlantis:

The £1 billion, 1,539-room Atlantis hotel, dubbed by Nakheel "an oceanic tribute to a mythological age", opened in November last year.

Other Investors in the hotel, on Palm Jumeirah Island, include Sol Kerzner, the South African billionaire.

Its star attractions had included a 13 ft whale shark swimming in a million-litre fish tank. Last year, though, the owners announced plans to free the shark after a campaign by animal cruelty protesters.

The IBN Battuta Mall

The luxury shopping mall opened in 2005. At the time it was said to be to be the Middle East's largest.

It features different sections themed into Asian countries.

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