Wafic Saïd

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Wafic Rida Saïd (Arabic: وافق رضا سعيد‎) (born Damascus, 1939) is a Syrian-Saudi-Arabian businessman living in Monaco and the UK.

Saïd became a billionaire through his connections with the Saudi royal family, acting as a negotiator and consultant on many major infrastructure and armaments projects including the multi-billion dollar Al Yamamah arms contract. He is Chairman of Said Holdings Limited, an investment holding company, incorporated in Bermuda, with investments in Europe, North America and the Far East. It has diverse portfolios, which include fixed income, quoted equities, hedge funds, private equity and real assets including real estate.

In 1982 he founded The Karim Rida Said Foundation, a UK registered charity that aims to bring positive and lasting change to the lives of children and young people in the Middle East. In 1996 he donated £23 million to establish Saïd Business School, the business school at the University of Oxford. Saïd also provided substantial funding for the establishment of the Wafic Saïd Molecular Cardiology & Gene Therapy Research Laboratory at the Texas Heart Institute, St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas. In 2003 he became the first recipient of Sheldon Medal which had been newly established by Oxford University to honour exceptional supporters of the University.

He has commissioned on the site of an old house a neo-Palladian country house, Tusmore Park, near Bicester in Oxfordshire, England. He also has houses in London, Paris and Marbella.