Al-Waleed bin Talal

Al-Waleed bin Talal
Born	March 7, 1955 (1955-03-07) (age 54) Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Residence	Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Nationality	Saudi Arabian
Occupation	businessman
Religious beliefs	Islam

Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud
HRH Prince Al-Waleed
House of Saud
Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud
Offspring
Khaled bin Al-Waleed Reem bint Al-Waleed

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud (Arabic: الوليد بن طلال بن عبد العزيز آل سعود‎) (born 7 March 1955) is a member of the Saudi Royal Family. He is the nephew of the Saudi Arabia King Abdullah, and the grand son of the first Lebanese prime minister after independence Riad as-Solh. An entrepreneur and international investor, well connected in politics and power houses in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, he has amassed a fortune through investments in real estate and the stock market.

As of March, 11 2009 his net worth is estimated at US$13.3 billion, down from $21 billion, according to the Arabian Business rich list published December 2, 2008. He is ranked by Forbes as the 22nd richest person in the world. He has been nicknamed by Time magazine as the Arabian Warren Buffett.^[1]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Business interests 3 Doubts about the source of income 4 Charitable activities 4.1 United States of America 4.2 The United Kingdom 4.3 France 4.4 2005 Pakistan earthquake 4.5 Mali 5 Political involvement 6 Assets 7 Wives 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links

Early life

Al-Waleed was born to Prince Talal, son of the founding King of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Al Saud, and Princess Mona El-Solh, daughter of Riad El-Solh, the first Prime Minister of modern day Lebanon and a leader of Lebanese Independence. He is also a cousin of Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco, whose mother is Mona's sister. He is Prince Talal's second son.

Al-Waleed completed a bachelor of science degree in business administration at Menlo College in 1979 and masters in social science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University, in 1985. He was also awarded an honorary PhD from the University of Exeter. He has been divorced three times. As of 2006, he is married to Princess Ameera, has two children: Prince Khaled and Princess Reem from his first wife, his cousin Princess Dalal bint Saud bin Abdul Aziz. Despite being the nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, he has stayed outside of the core of political power in Saudi Arabia, and instead built a large international corporation called the Kingdom Holding Company, through which he makes his investments.^[2]

Business interests

Al-Waleed began his business career in 1979 upon graduation from Menlo College. The Prince's activities as an investor came to prominence when he bought a substantial tranche of shares in Citicorp in the 1990s when that firm was in difficulties. With an initial investment of $550 million ($2.98 a share after adjusting for stock splits, acquisitions and spin-offs, according to Bloomberg calculations) to bail out Citibank caused by underperforming American real estate loans and Latin American businesses, his holdings in Citigroup now comprise for about $1 billion. His investments in Citibank earned him the title of Saudi Warren Buffett. This title has come under shadow considering that many of his most prominent investments have performed quite poorly.

Although his stake in Citibank once accounted for approximately half of his wealth, by January 2009 this holding had lost nearly all of its value. At the end of 1990 he bought 4.9% of Citicorp’s existing common shares for $207m ($12.46 per share)—the most that he could without being legally obliged to declare his interest. In February 1991, as American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia were preparing for war with Iraq, the prince spent $590m buying new preferred shares, convertible into common shares at $16 each. This amounted to a further 10% of Citicorp and took his stake to 14.9%.^[3] In January 2008, the Prince participated -- together with the Singapore government investment coporation and other investors -- in a $12.5 Billion capital raise, in an unsuccessful effort to shore up Citi's capital position, but the value of these shares continued to plunge.^[4]

Later, he also made large investments in AOL, Apple Inc., Worldcom, Motorola, News Corporation Ltd and other technology and media companies.^[5]

His real estate holdings have included large stakes in the Four Seasons hotel chain and the Plaza Hotel in New York. He sold half of his shares in the latter in August 2004. He has made investments in London's Savoy Hotel and Monaco's Monte Carlo Grand Hotel. He currently holds a 10% stake in Euro Disney SCA, the organization which manages and maintains the Disneyland Resort Paris in Marne-la-Vallee, France.^[6]

In January 2005 Al-Waleed purchased the Savoy Hotel in London for an estimated GBP £250 million, to be managed by Fairmont Hotels, in which Al-Walid owns an estimated 16% stake. In January 2006, in partnership with the U.S. real estate firm Colony Capital, Kingdom Holdings acquired Toronto, CA-based Fairmont Hotels for an estimated $3.9 billion.

As of 2008, there are plans for the $10 billion construction of the Burj Al-Meel (Arabic for "the Tower of One Mile"), a supertall skyscraper to be the tallest in the world, at one mile (1609 m) in height.

Doubts about the source of income

The Economist has expressed doubts about the source of income of Prince Al Waleed and whether he is a front man for other Saudi investors. According to it, he has not earned enough income from his investments to pay for all that he has spent in the 1990s. The mystery goes back to that first stake in Citicorp. The prince has declared that this money came entirely from his personal funds. He says he started out in 1979 with a loan of just $30,000 from his father. He also mortgaged a house that his father had given him, raising approximately $400,000. And each month, as a grandson of Ibn Saud, he receives $15,000. "You could barely clothe a Saudi prince for such sums, let alone furnish him with a multi-billion-dollar empire. Nevertheless, by 1991 Prince Alwaleed had felt able to risk an investment of $797m in Citicorp", writes the magazine.^[3]

Charitable activities

Much of the charitable activities of Al-Walid is in the field of educational initiatives to bridge gaps between Western and Islamic communities by funding centers of American studies and research in universities in the Middle East and centers of Islamic studies in American universities.

United States of America

• In 2001, he offered New York City a donation of $10 million towards relief efforts after the September 11, 2001 attacks. This was rejected by Mayor Rudy Giuliani because Al-Waleed suggested that the attacks were an indication that the United States "should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause." ^[7]The $10 million dollars was then given to The American University in Cairo (AUC), to expand Arab Studies, and the building of the new campus.
• In 2002, Al-Waleed donated $500,000 to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
• In 2002, Al-Waleed donated $500,000 to the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund, established by Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, to honor former President George H. W. Bush.
• In December 2005, Al-Waleed donated $20 million each to Harvard University and Georgetown University to fund Islamic studies. The gift to Georgetown, which renamed the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in his honor, was the university's second-largest donation in history, and the gift to Harvard was among its 25 largest.
• In 2006, the Al-Waleed donated $10 million to the Weill Medical College of Cornell University establishing the HRH Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud Institute for Computational Biomedicine (ICB). This institute studies complex genomic and cellular systems as they relate to medicine and biology by using mathematical models, physics and high-speed computing.
• In late 2007, Al-Waleed donated $1.48 million to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). ^[8]

The United Kingdom

In May 2008 the Cambridge University and the University of Edinburgh each received £8 million from Prince Al-Waleed to promote Islamic studies.^[9]

France

• In July 2005, he donated $20 million to the Louvre Museum, its largest gift ever. It will help fund the construction of a wing for the Louvre's vast collection of Islamic art. The wing will consist of a freeform, glassy structure that will bring a modern touch to a neoclassical courtyard. The design for the new wing would involve covering much of the Louvre's Cour Visconti, a neo-Classical courtyard, with a contemporary sail-like roof made up of small glass disks. Officials put the total cost of the wing, by the architects Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti, at $67 million and predicted it would open in 2009.

2005 Pakistan earthquake

• In October 2005, he donated 30 million riyals ($8.3 million) in the form of goods and cash to support relief and reconstruction efforts in the wake of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.

• He also gave $2 million to invest in Pakistan. The regions which benefited from this included Kahuta, the Jhelum valley, and the mountainside region of the Swat River valley.

Mali

• In August 2007, Al-Walid visited Mali to inaugurate the new building he financed to house the headquarters of the Fondation Pour l'Enfance, an organization dedicated to improving the living conditions of Malian and African children, presided by the current First lady of Mali, Touré Lobbo Traore, and founded in the 1990s by her husband, President Amadou Toumani Touré, while he was a private citizen. The new headquarters are in Bamako, Mali. ^[10]

Political involvement

Al-Walid is not part of the ruling executive within the House of Saud and has generally kept out of politics. However, he has recently started to make overt political statements in his press releases and interviews. His views can be seen as critical of Saudi traditionalism, proposing reforms to elections, women's rights and the economy. He has also openly criticized operation of the state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco. He is vocal about women's rights and hired the first female airline pilot in Saudi Arabia, Hanadi Hindi.

He has also taken a notable pro-American stance, backed up by his $10 million financing of American study programmes at the American University in Cairo.

Al-Walid is a citizen of Lebanon, his mother's country. In recent years, he has taken part in Lebanese politics, backing the President admiral Émile Lahoud against since assassinated Lebanese billionaire Rafik Hariri and investing in luxury resorts and pan-Arab Lebanese media: (al-Nahar, LBC International, Rotana Records).

Assets

Al-Waleed now owns the yacht Kingdom 5KR, which is the 85.9-meter (282-foot) yacht originally built as the "Nabila" for Saudi billionaire, Adnan Khashoggi. She subsequently posed as the Flying Saucer, the yacht of James Bond villain Largo in the film Never Say Never Again. The yacht was later sold to Donald Trump, who renamed it Trump Princess. Al-Walid bought the yacht after Trump's second bankruptcy.^[11]

He has ordered a new yacht currently known as the New Kingdom 5KR which will be about 170 meters (557 feet) long and will cost $500+ million. The yacht is rendered by Lindsay Designs and is expected to be delivered in 2009.^[12]

He owns 300 cars and has been rumored to own a diamond-covered Mercedes SL600 worth an estimated $4.8 million. This, however, is a popular hoax email that has been circulating the internet since 2006 in different forms.^[13]

At the 2007 Dubai Airshow, Airbus confirmed that Al-Walid, already owner of a Boeing 747 jet converted to private use, had ordered an Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger aircraft. Outfitted for private use, the aircraft is to be delivered in 2010.^[14][15] This has been noted in the 2009 Guiness World Records as the largest private jet in the world.

Al-Waleed and his children live in a $100 million sand-colored palace whose 317 rooms are adorned with 1,500 tons of Italian marble, silk oriental carpets, gold-plated faucets and 250 TV sets. It has four kitchens, for Arabic, Continental and Asian cuisines, and a fifth just for dishing up desserts, run by chefs who can feed 2,000 people on an hour's notice. Their royal highnesses can swim in a lagoon-shaped pool, or catch a film in the 45-seat basement cinema.^[16]

Wives

• Princess Dalal bint Saud bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, mother of Prince Khaled and Princess Reem (divorced)
• Princess Eman bint Naser bin Abdulah al Sudairy (divorced)
• Princess Amera al Taweel

See also

• House of Saud

References

Further reading

• Riz Khan - AlWaleed: Businessman Billionaire Prince (HarperCollins, 2005) ISBN 0-06-085030-2
• Saudi Prince backs Murdoch (Forbes Magazine September 2005)

External links

• Publisher of his biography
• 2005 Interview with Prince AlWaleed
• Forbes World's Richest People 2005
• 'A day in the desert with Prince Alwaleed', ArabianBusiness.com
• The mystery of the world’s second-richest businessman from The Economist
• The Frogs Of The Prince, Forbes article from 2000
• A mini-portal on Prince Al-Waleed maintained at Libanmall
• Year-wise listing of his international investments since 1991 on a mini http://www.theroyalist.net/content/view/1697/1/
• A Dutch State television broadcast about Saudi woman with extensive footage of the Prince (Language=Dutch)
• Portfolio
• Kingdom Holding
• Interview on Charlie Rose show
• La vie Incroyable, French documentary about HRH Prince Alwaleed
• Revealed: Camilla's Mystery £1m Benefactor 31 January 2007
• AlWaleed Investment
• Power List 2008 Prince again on top in ArabianBusiness Power 100 2008. World's Most Powerful Arab