Mohamed Al-Fayed
Mohamed Al-Fayed ( Arabic محمد الفايد, actually Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed ) (born January 27, 1929 or 1933 in Alexandria ) is an Egyptian businessman and billionaire . Among other things, he is the owner of the Ritz Hotel in Paris and the former owner of the Harrods department store in London and the London football club Fulham . Al-Fayed is a very controversial figure in the UK . One of his sons, Dodi Al-Fayed , became known worldwide through his relationship with Princess Diana . In 2004 Fayed adopted his son Dodi's long-time friend, who has been called Miqdad Al-Fayed since then .
Ascent
Fayed was born in Bakos (باكوس), a district in eastern Alexandria , as the eldest son of a primary school teacher. Among other things, he worked as a Coca-Cola street vendor, sewing machine seller and teacher. Fayed made his fortune after he married Samira Khashoggi , the sister of the arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi , and whose brother gave him a leading position in his import company in Saudi Arabia . His son Dodi Fayed came from his marriage to Samira.
After Fayed had established numerous business contacts in the United Arab Emirates , Haiti and London , he founded a shipping company in Egypt . In 1966 the Sultan of Brunei , one of the richest men in the world, appointed him his financial advisor. In 1979 he acquired the luxury hotel Ritz in Paris . In 1985 he married the former Finnish beauty queen Heini Wathén ; Al-Fayed's second marriage is the result of sons Karim and Omar and daughters Jasmine and Camilla.
Harrods controversy
Also in 1985, Al-Fayed and his younger brother Ali acquired the renowned Harrods department store in London for £ 615 million . In doing so, they prevailed against Tiny Rowland (in 1974, Al-Fayed was a member of the board of directors of Lonrho Holding , which Rowland owned for a short time ). Al-Fayed and Rowland argued publicly for years about the legality of this deal.
The conflict eventually culminated in an investigation by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The investigative commission came to the conclusion in 1990 that the Fayed brothers had lied about their origins and financial circumstances. However, nothing changed in terms of ownership, and Rowland made further serious allegations. He claimed the Fayeds were stealing millions of pounds worth of entrusted jewels from the store's vault . Rowland died in 1998, and Al-Fayed ended the conflict with a payment of an unknown amount to the widow. Al-Fayed was arrested once during the argument. He sued the Metropolitan Police for unlawful arrest, but failed in court in 2002.
Al-Fayed sold the department store to Qatar Holding in May 2010 . According to media reports, the sales price was £ 1.5 billion (EUR 1.8 billion). This amount was not confirmed by Al-Fayed.
Political conflicts and scandals
Since taking up residence in England, Al-Fayed has sought in vain to acquire British citizenship. The interior ministers of several governments, both the Labor Party and the Conservative Party , repeatedly rejected this request. They justified this with Al-Fayed's less than exemplary character and his opaque business methods. In order to still achieve his goal, Al-Fayed tried to polish up his image and donated considerable amounts to charitable organizations such as children's hospitals and schools. In 1992 he tried a relaunch of the traditional satirical magazine Punch , which, however, had to cease publication in 2002. In 1996 he acquired the London football club Fulham and led it into the Premier League with investments of millions . In 2013 he sold the club to Shahid Khan .
When, despite all these efforts, Al-Fayed failed to obtain British citizenship, he sued the government, but failed. The reason for the renewed rejection was probably his involvement in the Cash for questions scandal : In October 1994, Al-Fayed hired a lobby organization to bribe the Conservative MPs Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith. With specific questions in the House of Commons, they should have weighed heavily on those ministers who allegedly prevented Al-Fayed's application for naturalization.
conspiracy theories
Al-Fayed's son from his first marriage, the film producer Dodi Fayed, began a love affair with Princess Diana in the summer of 1997 , who was divorced from Prince Charles in 1996 . Dodi and Diana died on August 31, 1997 in a tunnel in Paris in a car accident while fleeing paparazzi .
After this accident, Mohamed Al-Fayed publicly claimed several times that her death was not the result of an accident. Rather, Dodi and Diana were victims of a far-reaching conspiracy in which Prince Philip and MI5 , among others , were involved. Al-Fayed claimed that certain people from the royal family and the secret service could not have endured the fact that Diana might have become pregnant by Dodi. Al-Fayed also claimed that he was the victim of a long-running smear campaign aimed at linking him to the terrorist group Al-Qaeda . These unproven statements resulted in the Harrods department store losing its status as purveyor to the court .
Others
From 1974 Al-Fayed lived in Great Britain and added the honorary "al-" to his name, whereupon the satirical magazine Private Eye gave him the nickname phoney pharaoh ("false pharaoh"). In 2003, Al-Fayed moved from Surrey to Switzerland . The reason he gave was that the UK tax authorities had failed to comply with an agreement. In 2005 he moved to Monaco .
literature
- Tom Bower: Fayed - The Unauthorized Biography . Macmillan, Basingstoke 1998, ISBN 0-333-74554-X
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Pharaoh of Fantasy . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1998, pp. 154-156 ( Online - Mar. 9, 1998 ).
- ↑ Tagesschau.de: "Qatar Holding secures Harrods luxury department store" ( Memento from May 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Article from May 8, 2010
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Al-Fayed, Mohamed |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Fayed, Mohamed Abdel Moneim |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Egyptian entrepreneur and billionaire |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 27, 1929 or 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Alexandria |