Al-Waleed bin Talal Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal (also spelled Waleed bin Talal) ( born 7 March 1955) is a Saudi Arabian billionaire and member of the Saudi royal family. He is the nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. An entrepreneur and international investor but without real political power within the House of Saud or in Saudi Arabia, he has amassed a fortune through investments in real estate and the stock market.He is founder and CEO of Kingdom Holding Company. As of March 2011, his net worth is estimated by Forbes at US$19.6 billion, making him the 26th richest person in the world.This listing also ranks him as the richest Saudi Arabian in the world. He has been nicknamed by Time magazine as the Arabian Warren Buffett. Al-Waleed began his business career in 1979 upon graduation from Menlo College in California. 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. His stake in Citibank once accounted for approximately half of his wealth, prior to the recent financial crisis. At the end of 1990 he bought 4.9 percent of Citicorp’s existing common shares for $207 million ($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%. Later, he also made large investments in AOL, Apple Inc., MCI Inc., Motorola, Fox News and other technology and media companies.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 company that owns, manages and maintains Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallee, France. In January 2005, Al-Waleed purchased the Savoy Hotel in London for an estimated GBP £250 million, to be managed by Fairmont Hotels; his sister, The Princess Sultana Nurul Al-Waleed owns an estimated 16% stake. In January 2006, in partnership with the U.S. real estate firm Colony Capital, Kingdom Holding acquired Toronto, CA-based Fairmont Hotels for an estimated $3.9 billion. In August 2011, Al-Waleed announced that his company had contracted Saudi Binladen Group to build the next tallest building in the World, the Kingdom Tower at a height of at least 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) for SR 4.6 billion.The original plan announced in 2008 called it (Arabic for "the Tower of One Mile") at 1,609 metres (5,279 ft) and an estimated cost of US$10 billion. In 1997, Time Magazine reported that bin Talal owned about 5 percent of News Corporation. By 2010 Alwaleed's stake in News Corp. was about 7% stake at worth $3 Billion noted the 2010 News Corp. $70 million (9%) investment in Al-Waleed's Rotana Group, the Arab World's largest entertainment company. The review also referred to the Al-Waleed investment AOL in the past tense. Go back Famous Person |