Prince al walid bin talal state. How a prince from Saudi Arabia fights livestock. So you are not mistreated

The fortune of the cosmopolitan investor, the nephew of the Saudi king, increased by $ 6.1 billion last year. Two-thirds of his capital is a 95% stake in the investment fund Kingdom Holding Company. In the five weeks preceding the cut-off date (by which the capitalization is calculated for forbes rating), the company's shares rose 49%. Alwaleed and Kingdom Holding Company own 3.5% of Citigroup, as well as large stakes in the Four Seasons and Fairmont hotel chains. In February, News Corp. has acquired 9% of Alwaleed's media company Rotana, valuing it at $ 770 million. His palaces and real estate are worth more than $ 3 billion. He owns a collection of jewelry worth, he estimates, $ 730 million, and four aircraft, including an Airbus A380.

Alwaleed ibn Talal is a member of the royal family of Saudi Arabia. He is the son of Prince Talal, whose parents were the founder of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Alsaud and Princess Mona El Sol.

Al-Walid ibn Talal received his education in the United States, first with a bachelor's degree in business management, then a doctor of science and a doctor of law. His property is the Kingdom Holding Company investment empire. He owns the largest stakes in many well-known companies. Among them are Worldcom, Motorola, AOL, Apple and others. The prince is also interested in real estate. These are stakes in hotels in New York, Monaco and London, as well as in a chain of entertainment complexes in France. His work schedule only allows him to sleep five hours a day. They say about him that, despite his kinship with the ruling king, Alwaleed Alsaud tries not to get involved in politics.

Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal is actively involved in philanthropy, among other things, donating more than one hundred million dollars annually to organizations in the Middle East, Asia and Africa dealing with the needs of the needy. Organizes education centers in the Middle East for American students, and in the United States for Islamic students. Two years ago, donated twenty million dollars to the Louvre for the construction of a new wing dedicated to Islamic art. In the same year, the prince transferred twenty million dollars each to American universities at Harvard and Georgetown. This donation ranks among the 25 largest at Harvard and the second largest for Georgetown. The university administration announced that these charitable contributions will be used to improve curriculaand will also expand the teaching staff in this area.

Prince Alwaleed promotes equal rights for women, the first in the country to hire a woman as a pilot.

Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal

Prince Al-Walid ibn Talal is the nephew of the current reigning king of Saudi Arabia. He earned his fortune on investments, he owns the Kingdom Holding Company. Through this company, he makes all his investments. The prince began to engage in investments that subsequently brought him fabulous money back in the late seventies, taking out a loan of three hundred thousand dollars. He is one of the richest people in the world.

They say he sleeps five hours a day, it takes so long to control investments. He owns large stakes in AOL, Apple Computers, Worldcom, Motorola, News Corporation Ltd and others. In 1990, Al-Walid ibn Talal acquired a controlling stake in Citicorp, which at that time was not better times... Now the prince's shares are worth $ 10 billion.

Spends a lot on charity. After the terrible tragedy of September 11, he offered New York a donation of ten million dollars. The offer was rejected by the mayor of the city. In 2002, Prince Alwaleed donated half a million dollars to the Bush Sr. School Scholarship Fund. In December of the same year, he donated $ 27 million to the government of Saudi Arabia to pay the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. After the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, donated goods and funds to support and restore total in the amount of 5.3 million US dollars. Among other things, he is going to sell five percent of his Kingdom Holding Company to the population. The company's value is estimated at $ 17.6 billion. The shares will be offered at a price of $ 2.73 per share. If the shares are in demand, the supply can be expanded to fifteen percent of the company's shares.

According to Al-Walid ibn Talal, in modern world issues of tolerance and understanding between East and West are among the most important. He is building bridges between the Western and Islamic communities, organizing educational centers for American students at universities in the Middle East and for Islamic students in the United States.

The prince loves to spend money on beautiful and expensive things. He has luxury cars, and usually he buys them in two copies: one for himself, and exactly the same for his bodyguards.

Although Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal did not usually intervene in politics, recent times he began to criticize the excessive traditionalism in Saudi Arabia, promoting free elections and equal rights for women.

Prince Khalid ibn al-Walid al-Saud is a typical hipster. He wears Converse sneakers and hoodies, uses Uber and doesn't eat animal products. He has a goal in life - to rid the world of livestock farms. And he also has huge funds to achieve this goal.

ALEXEY ALEXEEV

Student child

Few people have heard the name of the Saudi prince Khalid ibn al-Walid al-Saud in Russia. There is no article about him in the Russian-language Wikipedia, and a Russian-language Google search yields several articles from vegetarian sites and thousands of links to articles about the prince's father, a multi-billionaire investor.

Prince Khalid ibn al-Walid al-Saud was born in 1978 in California. Not your usual birthplace for a member of the Saudi royal family, right? How did he get there?

This story can be started from the middle of the last century. Since John Russell, professor at the obscure American College of Menlo, decided to take a vacation in Saudi Arabia. He told his acquaintances to the Saudis that he worked in a small private business school, which gave a very good education for a lot of money. The professor could hardly have guessed what would happen next.

Soon the first students from Saudi Arabia appeared at the college. After the start of the oil boom in the 1970s, their numbers grew rapidly. To date, more than 100 members of the Saudi royal family have graduated from Menlo College. Other families of the Saudi elite also began to send their sons to study in Menlo, and one family decided to give an American education even to their daughter! According to statistics, the percentage of Saudi Arabian students among college students exceeds their share in any other educational institution in the United States.

In 1975, Prince al-Walid ibn Talal ibn Abdel Aziz al-Saud, grandson of the founder and first king of Saudi Arabia, entered college. Many years later, this prince, who holds a BA in Business Administration from Menlo College, would be called the Saudi Warren Buffett.

The prince will argue with Forbes magazine because it underestimates the size of his fortune. According to the magazine's latest estimate, it is $ 18.7 billion, making Prince al-Walid the 45th richest person on our planet. Bloomberg in November estimated his fortune at $ 17.8 billion.

But then, 43 years ago, it was just a moderately well-fed young man who came to California to learn how to make money. The following year, student al-Walid married his cousin Dalal. Their firstborn was Prince Khalid.

From college to university

Having received a bachelor's degree, Prince al-Walid returned to his homeland with his wife and one-year-old son. He completed his master's degree in sociology at the University of Syracuse by correspondence. In his free time he worked part-time. He mortgaged the house his father had given him. I sold a necklace that my father gave to his wife. The money is smartly invested. He was engaged in real estate, construction, bought banks. Slowly he became an international investor, became a billionaire.

Him the only son and the heir Prince Khalid lived with his father in the palace. When Prince Khalid was four years old, he had a younger sister, Rome. A little later, the parents divorced. Then dad got married again and got divorced again.

In 1997, the family of a single father with two teenage children celebrated a housewarming by moving to a new palace in central Riyadh. The palace had 317 rooms, almost all of which had a TV set. Italian marble, oriental rugs, golden bathroom taps, five cuisines (for Lebanese, Arabic, European continental and Asian cuisines and a separate one for sweets). In the yard there is a swimming pool, in the basement there is a cinema. The single father also had a yacht purchased from the American developer Donald Trump, several private planes and three hundred and three cars, with one Rolls Royce being considered a daughter's.

Even when buying a private yacht, Prince al-Walid showed himself to be a talented investor. He bought it at a discounted price from the developer D. Trump during the fall of the real estate market. In the photo - Prince al-Walid with his son Khalid and daughter Rome

Photo: Balkis Press / ABACAPRESS / Kommersant

Of course, Princess Rome did not drive him herself. Not because she was 15, but because the laws of the kingdom prohibited women from driving.

In the year of housewarming, Prince Khalid turned 19. And two important events took place in his life, which largely determined the future of the prince. Following in his father's footsteps, he entered an American business school. True, not to Menlo College, popular with the Saudi elite, but to the University of New Haven. Then he worked in a bank, moved to his father's investment holding Kingdom Holding Company.

But even more important was the father's example in another area of \u200b\u200blife. Despite five kitchens and a crowd of chefs capable of preparing a dinner for 2000 people in an hour, Prince al-Walid decided that he needed to lose weight and generally lead healthy image life.

If as a student he weighed 90 kg, then along with billions of dollars came additional kilograms. Alwaleed began counting calories. Islam did not allow him to drink alcohol, and his own convictions did not allow him to smoke. The great investor became a vegetarian.

Livestock farms - the dustbin of history

“Prince Khalid is considered to be Western, progressive on many issues, including the role of women in Saudi society. He, like his father, has a business-like mindset, but at the same time he is simple and sweet. " Such a description of Prince Khalid is contained in the files of the private American intelligence and analytical company Stratfor, published by WikiLeaks. The same is written about the prince by journalists who interviewed him.

In Saudi Arabia, he wears traditional clothes, but in America he wears jeans, a hoodie, a baseball cap and black Converse sneakers (the top, of course, is made of faux leather). True, while traveling abroad, he lives in Four Seasons hotels, which can hardly be called budget. But he does this not at all out of a desire to spend extra money, but on the contrary, out of economy: his father is the co-owner of this network.

The prince most clearly demonstrated his advanced Western views in 2005, when he married a girl not from a royal, but from a simple family - the daughter of the country's finance minister.

Khalid is not just the heir to his father's business empire. In 2013, he founded his own company KBW Investments. He has business interests in all continents. But besides investments in traditional business areas (construction, mining, automotive, hospitality, media), Prince Khalid also invests in high technologies - mobile payments, smartphone applications, energy conservation. He helped promote the popular website TechnoBuffalo, dedicated to consumer electronics and new technologies.

The prince is very concerned about environmental problems. He has given up investing in oil and gas, an industry primarily associated with Saudi Arabia. He has only one car - a Tesla electric car. Outside of his home kingdom, he prefers Uber. Khalid believes that the world is facing an environmental disaster due to climate change, caused, in particular, by excessive consumption of meat.

In 2008, Khalid watched two American documentaries: Food, Inc. and Food. The price of the issue ”(Food Matters). The first one talks about how inhuman the meat industry is and what harm it causes to the environment. The second is about which foods are beneficial to the body and which ones are harmful. According to the prince, the films literally opened his eyes. The prince had another reason to think about food. Khalid at that time weighed 105 kg. The cholesterol level in his blood was greatly increased. Thanks to his veganism, he lost up to 82 kg in seven months and brought cholesterol back to normal. Before and after photos are now posted on his Facebook.

Last summer, Prince Khalid said in an interview: “My main goal is to send livestock farms to the dustbin of history. This must happen in my lifetime. "

The prince calculates that he can achieve this goal within 10 years through strategic investments in new agricultural methods that will provide the world's population with sufficient amounts of plant-based proteins.

Shortly before this interview, the prince started a Facebook page. It opens with the motto: "Stand up for your beliefs, even if you do it alone." However, he is not alone. Prince Khalid managed to convince his father to become not just a vegetarian, but a vegan.

As Prince Khalid writes on his Facebook, if the world sticks to a traditional diet, disaster is inevitable: "We must boycott fast food restaurants and take care of our health and the health of our children before this catastrophe occurs."

Last February in the Kingdom of Bahrain opened the first vegan gourmet restaurant with a very simple name - Cafe Plant. It is also the first outside North America restaurant by chef Matthew Kenny, guru of raw vegan cuisine.

Prince Khalid originally thought of paying a franchise to an American chef, but then he got a better idea - to invest in the Kenny restaurant chain. The Cafe Plant restaurant has become part of this network. It is conveniently located opposite the country's most prestigious English-taught school.

Thanks to Prince Khalid, the first vegan restaurant, part of the chain of establishments of legendary chef Matthew Kenny, opened in Bahrain (pictured in the center)

Photo: Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images for NYCWFF

Over the year, there have been many rave reviews for the restaurant on travel sites. Everyone, even people far from veganism, amicably admires the taste of dishes, but not everyone is delighted with the prices.

Prince Khalid intends to bring the number of such restaurants in the region to 10 by 2020. He realizes that this will not change the situation much, but will be a step in the right direction.

The prince funded the filming of the documentary "Eating Our Way To Extinction" ("If we eat like that, we will die out"). The film is slated to be released this year. Another documentary, which is funded by the prince, is about UFC mixed martial arts champion James Wilkes and other vegan athletes. Prince Khalid believes that documentaries can influence the viewer, make him change his views, as it once happened to him.

Last May, he attended the Reducetarian Foundation Summit in New York, a foundation advocating for the global reduction of meat consumption to protect human health, protect environment and humanization of animal husbandry.

Last September, Prince Khalid's company was among the $ 17 million investor in San Francisco-based startup Memphis Meats. The company is working on technology to create "pure meat" grown from animal cells in the laboratory. Among the investors who supported the startup are Bill Gates, Richard Branson and venture capital fund Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which previously invested in Baidu, SpaceX, Tesla, Twitter. Interestingly, the foundation is based in the neighborhood of the city of Atherton in Silicon Valley, where Prince Khalid was born 40 years ago.

In the same month, the prince became a member of the board of directors of Hampton Creek food company, which produces and sells vegetarian food. The company is also developing "clean meat" and plans to bring it to the market this year.

Prince Khalid once stopped by Life "n One vegan cafe in Dubai. The cafe has a slate board on which visitors can add their continuation of the sentence" Before I die, I want to ... "

The prince wrote, "End the livestock farms."

In mid-April 2004, one of the brightest and strongest players, the Arab field commander, left the political scene in Chechnya. A significant part of his life was spent in the shadow of another famous Arab commander -. And even now, more than two years after the "Black Arab" left for another world, the identity of his deputy, as well as the circumstances of his death, are still shrouded in mystery. We can lift the veil of this secret only to a small extent, for any information about this character is unlikely to be complete and reliable.

The real name of Abu al-Walid is Abd-al-Aziz al-Hamidi. He was born in 1967 in the Saudi province of Baljurashi to the family of Said bin Ali al-Hamidi, a real estate, timber and paint trader. Since Abd al-Aziz was the second of the eleven sons of Said bin Ali, he did not have to count on any significant part of his father's inheritance. Perhaps that is why he chose the life of an ideological mercenary full of hectic adventures, fighting equally for money and for religious convictions.

This was also facilitated by the ancestral origin of Abd-al-Aziz. The fact is that al-Hamidi is an old Saudi surname, descending from the Hamid tribe and always distinguished by significant religious zeal. Individual members of this family managed to achieve high posts in the Saudi hierarchy. So, until recently, Abdullah al-Hamidi was the Saudi consul in Moscow. However, Abd-al-Aziz, the son of a merchant, hardly hoped to become a consul and from the very beginning could only rely on his own energy. The same was hoped for by the other two "scions of the noble family", Ahmad Ibrahim al-Khaznawi al-Hamidi and Said al-Hamidi, who on September 11, 2001, together with two other terrorists, captured a Boeing 757 that crashed in Pennsylvania - as now believed to be a result of the struggle of passengers with hijackers.

In general, Abu al-Walid's family ties are rather complicated. On the one hand, his parents' family lives and lives in Saudi Arabia. In Chechnya, Abu al-Walid married a Chechen woman who bore him two sons, Omar and Salekh. On the other hand, for some reason there are persistent rumors among Chechen militants that Abu al-Walid was a cousin of the Jordanian Khattab. But, one way or another, al-Walid really for the most part of his combat biography was, as it were, the “younger brother” of the “Black Arab”, working with him “in the wings” and considering himself his deputy.

The young Abu al-Walid made his first steps as a fighter in Afghanistan, fighting there together with Khattab against Soviet army... Later, after the establishment of the Taliban regime, he repeatedly visited Afghanistan, took additional training courses there and was considered one of the first-class specialists in explosives.

After Afghanistan, Abu al-Walid was seen in Yugoslavia, where he fought on the side of the Bosnian Muslims. His participation in the first Chechen campaign is questionable: at this time he was learning the intricacies of mine explosives in the camp of the Afghan Taliban. His first reliable appearance in Chechnya can be attributed to 1997: he made his way to the territory of the rebellious republic from Afghanistan through Tajikistan. Moreover, he almost immediately became a confidant of Khattab and his right handresponsible for the supply and pay of the militants. True, at first he held relatively modest positions in the gangster hierarchy: for example, according to documents seized in Grozny in February 2000, Abu al-Walid was listed in the rank of lieutenant colonel and deputy commander of the "Islamic Khattab Regiment" battalion, which consisted mainly of Arab veterans. mercenaries.

During the existence of Maskhadov's "Ichkeria", the republic was in the focus of Osama bin Laden's attention. He pinned high hopes on independent Chechnya, intending to turn it into a springboard international terrorismfrom which it would be convenient to launch an offensive against Dagestan in order to turn the Caucasus into a "Wahhabite fortress" and one of the strongholds of the future "caliphate". Of all those of Chechen origin, probably only the one who was killed on February 28 of this year could boast of personal contacts with terrorist # 1. Nevertheless, the main vertical of power in Wahhabi Chechnya was built exclusively from Arabs.

For Chechnya, before Osama bin Laden, four Arab terrorist "international affairs" were responsible: Khattab, Abu Jafar, Abu Umar and Abu al-Walid. The first three are known to have been eliminated during the second Chechen campaign. And only now the Chechen militants have lost al-Walid, for the elimination of which the Russian authorities announced a reward of 100 thousand dollars.

Together with Khattab, Abu al-Walid took an active part in the attack on Dagestan, hoping to turn this republic, like Chechnya, into a "Sharia state." But this time the affairs of the militants were not nearly as successful as in the first chechen war... And when they were driven back to Chechnya and the second Chechen campaign began, things went downright bad for the Arab mercenaries.

Al-Walid was also out of luck. In March 2000, a group led by Achimez Gochiyaev, trained by al-Walid to commit terrorist acts in Russia, failed and was rendered harmless. Of all the members of the gang, only Gochiyaev himself managed to escape. And in the same month, al-Walid's relative, Yakub al-Hamidi, was killed.

Before Khattab had at his disposal about a thousand experienced Arab militants, many of whom began to fight with him in Afghanistan and Bosnia. Hiding behind the Chechens and Dagestani Wahhabis, Khattab was able to retain most of his forces and withdraw them to Chechnya. The fall of 1999 fell on hard times for them. Despite the fact that they could still count on the support of the population, especially in the southern regions of Chechnya, rejection of the order carried by Khattab, Abu al-Walid and other Arab field commanders grew among the mass of ordinary Chechens.

However, Khattab had two main trump cards in his hands - firstly, his "Islamic Regiment", and, secondly (more importantly), control over the funds that entered Chechnya on behalf of various extremist and terrorist organizations, primarily from "Muslim Brotherhood".

Along with the first defeats among the Chechen and Arab commanders, disagreements began over the distribution of these funds. The Chechens (and some of the foreign "sponsors") reasonably accused the Arabs of embezzling a considerable part of the material aid. Gradually, the financial flow to Chechnya began to dry up - most of the funds, as the investigation of the Muslim Brotherhood showed, was plundered by Khattab and his closest associates, such as Abu Umar or Abu Sayyakh. During the war, Khattab, in collusion with some functionaries of the Muslim Brotherhood, was able to appropriate several tens of millions of dollars for himself.

Abu al-Walid, although he was the right hand of Khattab, was not directly and openly involved in this theft. Therefore, they began to read him for the post of plenipotentiary representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in Chechnya, that is, in the place of Khattab. The latter, of course, could not stand and watch as he was wiped away from the big money and from the sole power over the militants.

Of all the commanders, Khattab really trusted very few. He has always been his confidant, but this can be explained rather by the coincidence of interests of the two leaders than sincere trust between them. At the same time, Khattab has always positioned Basayev for the role of the formal head of the militants, preferring to be a “gray cardinal” himself and to rule from behind Basayev. For example, as soon as Commander Ramzan Akhmadov began to be nominated for the role of the leader of the Wahhabis in 2001 for his "military merit", Khattab immediately ordered his removal, which was carried out by Arab Yakub from the Akhmad detachment.

Now it can be considered proven that in the fall of 2001 a black cat ran between two Arab commanders. Abu al-Walid, as the "chief intendant", began an investigation into the disappearance of money intended for the militants, and, having not received direct evidence, nevertheless came to the conclusion that Khattab was behind this. Because " public opinion“The militants were on the side of al-Walid, who presented himself as something like a selfless fighter for the faith, then Khattab found himself in a dangerous position. But he began to think about the possibility of leaving Chechnya long before that.

During the summer and autumn of 2001, Khattab was able to eliminate almost all of his associates involved in his machinations. Moreover, this was done most often by the hands of the Russian military, since Khattab sent these field commanders on difficult and dangerous missions. This is how Abu Darr, Abu Umar and Abu Yakub were destroyed, and later Abu Sayyah.

Meanwhile, behind Khattab's back, Abu al-Walid began to weave a conspiracy to remove his boss. He was able to go directly to Muslim Brotherhood officials such as Abu Rabia and tried to control the distribution of funds himself. Of course, Khattab could not forgive such a thing.

Back in September 2001, he charged Abu al-Walid with plotting something against him and threatened to kill him. During the winter of 2001-2002, Khattab developed an operation to destroy his deputy. To this end, Abu al-Walid was made responsible for the danger zone south of Grozny.

Abu al-Walid perfectly understood what kind of action his boss was preparing, and decided to play ahead of the curve. First of all, he prepared a "fallback" - Abu Rabia, who was in Tbilisi, prepared documents, civilian clothes and a route to Georgia for him. Having secured a path of possible retreat, Abu al-Walid began to act.

To begin with, he enlisted the support of senior officials from the Muslim Brotherhood group named Shahran and Abu Kuteiba. Abu al-Walid was able to convince them that Khattab and no one else was to blame for the recession in terrorist activity, since he embezzled money, preventing them from recruiting new fighters, buying weapons, explosives, ammunition and equipment.

Death crept closer and closer to Khattab. In January 2002, the last (after Abu Yakub and Abu Sayyakh) financier of Khattab, Oybek Rasimov, nicknamed “Uzbek”, was killed. With his death, Khattab lost his last close commander, whom he could completely trust.

But Abu al-Walid could not "topple" Khattab as long as he had influential defenders in the Muslim Brotherhood. One of these people was a certain Abu Jaber, who all the time tried to embellish the achievements of Khattab and ascribed to him clearly overestimated combat results before sponsors. An example of such activity is the gangster operation in Argun in December 2001, carried out by people from the so-called “Argun Jamaat” headed by Ismail Eskiyev. The latter, before the start of the operation, tried to get money through Abu al-Walid, who unambiguously set him on Khattab, wishing thereby to provoke a serious "showdown" with the latter. However, Eskiev died in battle, and Abu Jaber was able to attribute all the results to Khattab.

Convinced of the impossibility of removing Khattab through the sheikhs of the Muslim Brotherhood, Abu al-Walid decided to physically remove Khattab, which he managed to do at the end of February. True, after that, even such supporters as Abu Kuteiba turned their backs on Abu al-Walid. But his position as Khattab's deputy ultimately secured al-Walid to take his place after the death of the "Black Arab."

Balancing on the contradictions between the field commanders and their foreign patrons, Abu al-Walid al-Hamidi was able to acquire the same dominant position in the distribution of financial flows as Khattab, who was killed with his help. Thus, for one terrorist act in the Moscow metro on February 6, 2004, Abu al-Walid received four and a half million dollars, most of which he appropriated for himself.

Nevertheless, in the two years that have passed since the death of Khattab, the situation in Chechnya has become much less favorable for the militants, and money for act of terrorism much fewer were received, and it became more and more difficult to carry them out. Therefore, according to many experts, Abu al-Walid was going, like Khattab, to leave Chechnya and move to other regions of the world, where you can still make good money by waging a terrorist war.

A missile and bomb attack on the mountain base where al-Walid was on April 16, 2004, put an end to his presence in Chechnya. And it doesn't matter whether he was killed (as most likely happened) or faked his own death in order to leave Chechnya. Importantly, this was the last major representative of the Arab "old guard" of Khattab, who acted in connection with international terrorists and received money from them. Those who have now remained in Chechnya are mostly privates and non-commissioned officers of the terrorist army. Who still have the strength to launch daring forays, but hardly ever have enough authority to make serious international terrorists respect themselves the way Emir Khattab and his “ younger brother»Abu al-Walid al-Hamidi.

$ 21 billion

Prince al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud

Prince Al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud

The wealth of the ruling Saudi dynasty is not usually associated with business acumen, financial luck, or hard work. The only exception is the multibillion-dollar fortune of Prince al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. Becoming the chairman of his own company at 14 and a billionaire at 31, Prince al-Walid, now 51, is a typical Western businessman who has created himself and his capital, which is now estimated at 21 billion dollars.

At the beginning of the 20th century, King Ibn Saud managed to unite the disparate tribes of the Arabian Peninsula into one state with fire and sword. Since 1932, the Saudi dynasty has been the ruling royal dynasty of Saudi Arabia and the keeper of one of the main Muslim shrines - the Kaaba temple in Mecca. The al-Saud clan numbers over a thousand princes and princesses. The most famous of them - Prince al-Walid - stands out not only for the size of his fortune, but also for his high hierarchical position in the clan: he is the nephew of the current king of Saudi Arabia.

Alwaleed was born in 1957 from the marriage of a prince of blood of the royal family of Saudi Arabia and the daughter of the first prime minister of Lebanon. The parents divorced when the child was three years old, and until his 11th birthday, the boy lived with his mother in Beirut. The young son of the royal family was sent to America to receive education. Here, the prince graduated from Menlo College in San Francisco (he has a bachelor's degree in business administration) and a master's degree in social studies from Syracuse University in New York.

The adherent and guardian of Wahhabism in America became addicted to morning jogging, fell in love with Coca-Cola, masterfully mastered the ability to wear business suits and, they say, even was an active participant in riotous student parties.

The prince began his business activities in 1979 by providing intermediary services to foreign companies that wanted to do business with Saudi Arabia. Given the prince's closeness to the royal family and his informal influence in the region, the start was a success. In 1980, al-Walid bin Talal established the Mamlaka company (Kingdom in English). He himself says that he created a business with the help of 30 thousand dollars borrowed from his father, and a loan of 400 thousand dollars, received on the security of a house donated by his parent. Alwaleed continued to actively take advantage of his privileged position, receiving lucrative construction contracts and buying at discounted prices land for subsequent resale. However, according to al-Walid himself, his contracts and real estate transactions in the Riyadh district were no more than a glint on the radar screen. The metaphor used by the prince, otherwise than a Freudian slip of the tongue, can not be called: at that time, the prince was interested in war even more than business.

The war in Afghanistan was sacred to devout Muslims. The Saudi dynasty, at the head of Wahhabism, could not stay away from the events in Afghanistan. And al-Walid actively helped the Afghan mujahideen in the fight against the Soviet Union. In 1981, the prince even had a chance to visit training camps in Peshawar, where the mujahideen underwent combat training. However, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 and the outbreak of civil war in this country, al-Walid stopped sending money there. According to him, he made his last donation to the Mujahideen in April 1990, giving them $ 5.4 million.

Although many of my compatriots today finance the Afghan mujahideen, I myself no longer do this, - the prince admitted in an interview with one of the American publications. Whose money was spent by the novice businessman to support the Mujahideen, however, still remains a mystery. According to official information, the turnover of his company was more than modest.

As a serious businessman, al-Walid became known only in 1988 after acquiring a large block of shares in United Saudi Commercial Bank. But even this acquisition provided the prince with the status of a notable financial player only within the kingdom. However, two years later, the prince took a step that allowed him to become a prominent figure on a global scale: he acquired 20.8% of Citibank shares.

In the fall of 1990, the largest American bank found itself in a very difficult position: losses on lending to real estate transactions amounted to $ 1 billion, and the search for investors willing to help recapitalization was unsuccessful. The shares were rapidly depreciating.

In late 1990, al-Walid acquired a 4.9% stake in this corporation for $ 207 million (at a price of $ 12.46 per share). In February 1991, when the Americans received permission to use Saudi territory to deploy their troops in Operation Desert Storm, the prince managed to buy another stake in Citigroup. By early 1994, the company's share price had skyrocketed, greatly increasing al-Waleed's capital and solidifying his reputation as a successful businessman.

It would seem that everything is logical and transparent. But the research carried out by the experts of the Economist magazine raised some doubts in them, firstly, about the reality of his success as a strategic investor, and secondly, about the sources of his main income. According to the Economist's analysis, at that time al-Walid simply did not have the financial ability to invest $ 797 million in shares of a foreign company.

Following the success of the Citigroup acquisition, Prince al-Walid's empire expanded beyond Saudi Arabia and continued to expand rapidly. He has invested in media, telecommunications, information systems, banking, and large hotel chains.

However, Citibank was almost the only successful investment of the capital of the Saudi tycoon. All of his other investments outside Saudi Arabia for several years in the early 1990s, totaling $ 3 billion, increased by no more than 800 million! In the rating of American investors, the prince would occupy a place somewhere at the bottom of the list, and of course there can be no question of comparing al-Walid to Warren Buffett. Meanwhile, Time magazine called him "the Arab Warren Buffett" and Forbes as one of the world's most astute investors. In 1995, Business Week predicted that by 2010, al-Walid would become the most powerful and influential businessman on the planet.

The prince's most unsuccessful venture was his highly publicized attempt to save European Disneyland, which depreciated the shares he acquired by a quarter. The Sachs concern, the Planet Hollywood cafe chain and the Proton company can be put in the same row.

However, contrary to all economic laws, the prince's empire continued to grow. Since the mid-1990s, al-Walid has spent about $ 4.5 billion annually. At the same time, al-Walid rarely sold his shares and denied the possibility of replenishing his fortune by receiving an inheritance or gifts from wealthy relatives. In this case, - argued the experts of the magazine "Economist", - possible sources of replenishment of the prince's capital could be: a) the use of other people's funds; b) loans; c) investment income; d) trade.

Investing other people's money in profitable projects is a fairly common practice in Saudi Arabia, especially among members of the royal family who do not want to once again shine in the business world. Alwaleed, meanwhile, dismisses the suggestion that he is not investing his own money. As for loans, here too the prince prefers to do with his own funds. According to the prince, he is not carried away by trade either.

Only income from invested capital remains. But here, too, the debit does not coincide with the credit. By the end of 1999, al-Walid's fortune was estimated at $ 14.3 billion. His investments abroad were 11 billion, and in Saudi Arabia - about 700 million. In addition, he held $ 1.1 billion in hard currency. According to the calculations of experts, it turned out that 12.8 billion bring the prince $ 223 million in annual profit.

However, al-Walid declared that his annual profit at that time was 500 million per year. Experts were perplexed: Is it possible that most of the profit - 277 million - comes from the remaining $ 1.5 billion at the Prince's disposal ?!It should be borne in mind that al-Walid's personal property in the form of a palace, planes, yachts, etc., which at that time was worth $ 550 million, did not bring any profit at all.

Needless to say, the Saudi prince asked international experts in the field of economics a riddle in the spirit of oriental tales. Perhaps that is why most business publications prefer not to analyze al-Walid's investment strategy, but to discuss the exotic features of his life and everyday life. Thanks to glossy magazines, it is widely known that the prince does not drink or smoke, consumes no more than 130 calories a day and still, as in his student years, does daily jogging. Correspondents of glossy publications are not confused by the fact that, according to their own information, the prince works in a makeshift office equipped with satellite communications and half a dozen telephones under the shadow of a Bedouin tent in the Saudi desert... Imagination refuses to imagine Prince al-Walid jogging in the desert at night. However, it is quite possible that something like a running track winding around the oasis was built especially for him in the desert ... There is no doubt about his ability to live in a big way. In 2008, Prince al-Walid became the first private individual to buy an Airbus A380. The liner was named "Flying Palace". 350 million euros were spent on tuning the aircraft and about two years of work. The plane has a marble dining room for 14 people, a bar decorated with paintings in the colors of the Arabian desert, a bathroom with a jacuzzi, and a sauna. There is also a gym on board the plane, which (according to confirmed information) definitely has several treadmills that the prince and his guests use.

The current US mortgage crisis nearly ruined Citibank, of which al-Walid is the largest shareholder. Saudi Arabia is also not a country where Western investors want to invest money, who are intimidated by the country's tough regulations and low transparency. Saudi equities have been falling over the past two years. All these circumstances long ago and, apparently, for a long time knocked out the prince from among the leaders of the Forbes list.

But he still amazes the world with the size of his spending, and glossy magazines are still generous with praise for Prince al-Walid. Now it is characterized as a long-term investor with a global mindset, thanks to his flair for successfully investing in promising companies underestimated by others.

Despite the fact that in the coming years the prince will not take the place of Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, as a PR project of the Saudi royal family, he worked one hundred percent. At least for the subjects of the monarch and friends of the family, the glory of the prince should be satisfying. The extravagance and greed of the Saudis have long caused confusion among Western businessmen trying to do business with them. They now have a source of pride - a decent and generous offspring who demonstrate an amazing ability to earn capital "through their wits and hard work."