Al-Waleed bin Talal

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Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud

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

HRH Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, (born, March 7, 1955) (Arabic: الوليد بن طلال بن عبد العزيز آل سعود) commonly known as Prince Al-Waleed, is a member of the Saudi Royal Family, an entrepreneur and international investor. He has amassed his fortune through investments in properties and stocks. As of 2006, his net worth was estimated at US $20 billion and he was ranked by Forbes as the 8th richest person in the world, and the richest Arab. He has been nicknamed by Time magazine as the Arabian Warren Buffett.

Prince 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 also a daughter of Princess El-Solh.

Prince Al-Waleed completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration at Menlo College in 1979 and a Masters in Social Science at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, in 1985. He is twice divorced. As of 2006, he is married to Princess Ameera and has two children: Prince Khaled and Princess Reem. Despite being the nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, he has stayed outside of the core of political power in Saudi Arabia, instead building a large international business called the Kingdom Holding Company, through which he makes his investments.[citation needed]

Prince Al-Waleed began his business career in 1979 upon graduation from Menlo College. Funded by a $30,000 loan from his father and a $300,000 mortgage on his house, he initially brokered deals with foreign firms wishing to do business in Saudi Arabia.[citations needed] This was followed by land deals in the 1980s, along with major investments in the Saudi banking industry, which proved to be undervalued at the time.[citation needed]

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 to bail out Citibank caused by underpreforming American real estate loan and Latin American businesses, his holdings in Citigroup now comprises half of his wealth worth US$10 billion.[1] He has also made large investments in AOL, Apple Inc., Worldcom, Motorola, News Corporation Ltd and other technology and media companies.[citation needed]

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 17% stake in Euro Disney SCA, the organization which manages and maintains the Disneyland Resort Paris in Marne-la-Vallee, France[2].[citation needed]

In January 2005 Prince Al-Waleed purchased the Savoy Hotel in London for an estimated GBP £250 million, to be managed by Fairmont Hotels, in which Prince Al-Waleed 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 2006, he was believed to be in talks with Robert Earl, founder of Planet Hollywood, about taking a controlling stake in the English Premier League's Everton Football Club.[citation needed]

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[edit] Charitable activities

Prince Al-Waleed is heavily involved in charitable activities across the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and is estimated to donate more than $100 million annually to charity. Much of this expenditure 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.

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 he 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."

In 2002, Prince Al-Waleed donated $500,000 to the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund, established by the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, to honor former President George H. W. Bush.

In December 2002, Al-Waleed donated $27 million to a Saudi Government telethon raising money for Palestinians.

In July 2005, he donated $20 million to the Louvre Museum, the largest gift ever to the world's largest museum. It will help to 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.

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

In December 2005, Prince Al-Waleed donated $20 million each to Harvard University and Georgetown University to finance Islamic studies. The gift to Georgetown was the university's second-largest donation in history, and the gift to Harvard was among its 25 largest.

In 2006, the Prince donated $10 million 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.

Prince Al-Waleed owns over 5% of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

[edit] Political involvement

Prince Al-Waleed 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.

During recent years, he has also been involved in Lebanese politics (Prince Al-Waleed is a Lebanese citizen through his mother), backing President Emile Lahoud against since assassinated Lebanese billionaire Rafik Hariri and investing in luxury resorts and pan-Arab Lebanese media (al-Nahar, LBC International). His effort to be a leader in the Lebanese Sunni community has been relatively unsuccessful so far.

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