al-Walid ibn Talal

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Al-Walid ibn Talal, 2015

Prince al-Walid ibn Talal Al Saud ( Arabic الوليد بن طلال بن عبد العزيز آل سعود, DMG al-Walīd b. Ṭalāl b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Āl Saʿūd , often also written Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud ; * March 7, 1955 in Riyadh ) is a Saudi Arabian investor . On the real-time list of the richest people in the world published by the business magazine Forbes , he ranks 45th with a fortune of 17.2 billion US dollars (as of November 2017) and is the richest Arab. Prince Walid runs the Kingdom Holding and is the owner of the Savoy Hotel .

origin

Walid is a grandson of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud , the founder of the Saud dynasty , who was King of Saudi Arabia from 1932 to 1953 , and a grandson of Riyadh as-Solh , the first prime minister of independent Lebanon. His father, Talal ibn Abd al-Aziz , a son of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud, went into exile in 1962 as a liberal reformer, where Walid received no appanages as prince. Walid is the eldest son of Talal. In 1964 the family returned to Saudi Arabia, but were excluded from government office. After his parents divorced, Walid grew up with his mother Muna Sulh in Beirut . When the civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975, Talal sent his son to the King Abd al-Aziz Military Academy in Riyadh .

education

After studying (from 1976) at Menlo College (business administration) in California in 1979, he received (according to his own statements) as the basis for his fortune from his father 15,000 dollars and a villa worth 1.5 million dollars. After investing the money in construction companies and when his father denied him further allowances, Walid took out a mortgage on the villa, successfully speculated on land, built a construction company (Kingdom Establishment) and made a fortune of 450 million dollars by 1983. His company benefited from the construction boom in the 1980s after the oil price peaked in 1980. At Syracuse University (New York) Walid received his Masters in Political Science in 1985.

Career

He bought the indebted United Saudi Commercial Bank and led it through several mergers to become the most profitable bank in Saudi Arabia and the most important financial institution in the Middle East. From 1987, Walid speculated on Wall Street. After the stock price of Citigroup fell to a low in 1991, he invested a large part of his assets, $ 800 million, in 15% of the company's shares (largest single shareholder), these shares for a long time contributed around half of his assets ($ 10 billion , 4.3% of Citigroup). Due to the financial market crisis, however, the value of his Citigroup shares fell considerably. At the end of 2008, he held around 5% of the shares, and the block of shares was only worth around 1.5 billion dollars.

The American New York Times referred to Walid as "Arab Warren Buffett ", whereupon the American billionaire Warren Buffett Walid wrote that he was known as "Walid of America". Like Buffett, Prince Walid made his fortune not with a single product (e.g. steel), but with investments. He mainly bought stocks of globally known corporations with strong brand names (Buffett relies on high real value and low prices) that were performing poorly and had liquidity problems.

When the Saudi stock exchange fell sharply and lost 30% of its value, the prince announced new investments of $ 2.7 billion, which caused a change in sentiment.

At KirchMedia , Walid allegedly lost $ 350 million. He has a 27% stake in Mövenpick .

The prince caused a stir in May 2005 when he invested in 15 American companies with a total of one billion dollars. These included Walt Disney , McDonald’s , WorldCom , Procter & Gamble , priceline.com , amazon.com and eBay . Walid is u. a. stake in the New York hotel The Plaza (10%), the hotel chain Four Seasons (22%), Rupert Murdochs News Corporation (7%), Disneyland Paris (17.3%), Apple (5%) and the Paris hotel George V. (100%).

At the end of 2011, Walids made an investment in the short message service Twitter . The prince provided the Internet company with $ 300 million through his Kingdom Holding and in return received an estimated 3.8 percent stake.

Prince Walid complained in 2013 about the presentation of Forbes magazine . His fortune is said to be 29.6 billion dollars instead of the 25.7 billion dollars given by Forbes and therefore justify a place in the top ten.

After King Salman founded an anti-corruption commission headed by his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman , it arrested eleven princes, four ministers, many ex-ministers and business people, including al-Walid ibn Talal and Saleh Abdullah Kamel .

donate

In an interview with Der Spiegel in 1999, Walid said: "God has blessed me with great wealth, that brings obligations with it." According to reports from Riyadh, the prince is supposed to distribute around 200 million dollars a year.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the USA , New York Mayor Giuliani refused a donation from Walid of ten million dollars, because Walid had previously criticized the USA as being too Israel-friendly.

The prince is a supporter of Hanadi Zakaria al-Hindi and Mona Abu Suleyman .

In mid-2005, Walid donated 17 million euros to the Louvre ( Paris ) for a new department for Islamic art.

In spring 2006 he donated 20 million euros each to the two American universities Harvard (Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program) and Georgetown (Washington DC, Prince al-Walid-bin-Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding ). The Wall Street Journal then criticized the lack of a “center for Muslim-Christian understanding” in Saudi Arabia.

In July 2015, Prince Walid announced that he would donate his entire fortune of around 32 billion dollars to charity, for which his organization "Alwaleed Philanthrophies" would be used. He also supported the Clinton Foundation with donations.

Others

In May 2005, the prince received ADC's Global Achievement Award from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee .

Walid is divorced three times and has a son, Chālid (* 1978), and a daughter, Rīm (* 1982).

In October 2007 he was the first private customer to buy an Airbus A380 in Flying Palace equipment, but sold it to an anonymous buyer shortly before delivery. With the Kingdom 5KR , Walid owns one of the longest motor yachts in the world , which he acquired from Donald Trump in 1991 as Trump Princess .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alwaleed Foundations: HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal (English) ( Memento from February 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud. Forbes , accessed November 5, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Sheikh on a bargain hunt, Der Spiegel 42/1997 p. 150.
  4. ↑ Al-Walid increases stake in Citigroup again to five percent
  5. ^ Rainer Hermann: The Arab Warren Buffett. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, March 26, 2006, No. 12, p. 55.
  6. ↑ [1]
  7. ↑ Saudi prince feels too poor by Forbes / Rich ranking: Saudi prince complains about "Forbes" list . In: Der Spiegel, March 5, 2013.
  8. ↑ faz.net: An all too poor billionaire .
  9. ↑ David D. Kirkppatrick, New York Times: Saudi Arabia Arrests 11 Princes, Including Billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal
  10. ↑ We Too Are Victims of Terrorism. In: New York Times. Der Spiegel, January 31, 2005, archived from the original on March 5, 2005 ; accessed on June 28, 2014 (English, interview).
  11. ↑ Rainer Hermann: He doesn't have a kingdom, but Kingdom Holding. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 6, 1999.
  12. ↑ CNN.com: Giuliani rejects $ 10 million from Saudi prince (English)
  13. ↑ Louvre.fr ( Memento of April 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Models of the Islamic Art Department New Wing
  14. ↑ Prince Alwaleed's Gift Supports OCP Islamic Heritage Project , Harvard University Library Notes / January 2006 / No. 1329.
  15. ^ Delicate donations of an oil prince , SpiegelOnline April 13, 2006
  16. ↑ Saudi Prince Walid wants to donate his entire fortune. Handelsblatt, July 1, 2015.
  17. ↑ Dan Alexander, Forbes: The Mystery Of Hillary's Missing Millions
  18. ↑ ... Prince Al Walid bin Talal Al Saud, recipient of ADC's Global Achievement Award
  19. ↑ Alwaleed sells A380 flying palace
personal data
SURNAME Walid ibn Talal, al-
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walid ibn Talal Al Saud, al
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Saudi Arabian sheikh and investor
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Riad