Around the Saudi capital of Riyadh, he's known as the Desert Prince. In business circles, they call him the Arabian Warren Buffett. Charles and Camilla have deemed him "a jolly good egg." To most, though, Prince al-Waleed bin Talal is known simply as al-Waleed.
From the futuristic Kingdom Tower--a 303-metre-tall glass-and-chrome structure that looms over Riyadh--the Prince controls an empire worth more than $20 billion (currency in U.S. dollars except as noted), putting him at No. 13 on Forbes's list of the world's richest people. His holdings include stakes in Motorola, News Corp., Apple Inc., Saks Fifth Avenue and Time Warner. In Canada, the Prince is best known as the Saudi royal with a penchant for Canadian hotels: He headed a $3.9-billion buyout of Fairmont Hotels and Resorts Inc. in early 2006, and recently led the $4-billion (Canadian) privatization of Four Seasons Hotels Inc.
Al-Waleed is one of hundreds of grandsons of Abdulaziz Alsaud, the founding king of Saudi Arabia. In 1962, the seven-year-old Prince's parents separated.
Al-Waleed went to live with his mother in Beirut, where he was insulated from the extreme indulgence and wild ways of the 6,000 other Saudi princes. For fun, he played a daily game of Monopoly with his cousin--and invariably won, according to the glowing 2005 biography Alwaleed, by journalist Riz Khan.
At 19, while attending Menlo College, near San Francisco, al-Waleed married his cousin, Princess Dalal. Two years later, in 1978, the Princess gave birth to a son, Prince Khaled. Meanwhile, Al-Waleed sped through his business-administration degree and arrived back in Riyadh just in time for the oil boom, in 1979.
That's when the al-Waleed legend begins. Using a $30,000 loan from his father, Prince Talal, al-Waleed started Kingdom Establishment, a real-estate development company. He quickly ran out of cash and took out a $300,000 mortgage on his "small cabin"--another gift from his father--to keep going. To build capital, he used his royal connections to help foreign companies sign deals with local partners, then plowed his commissions into real estate. Soon he branched out into banking (via Saudi Arabia's first hostile takeover, in 1986), grocery stores and media. In between, he had a daughter, Princess Reem, and returned to America to get a master's degree in social science at Syracuse University. By 1989, he'd amassed his first billion. (Domestically, however, there were problems; al-Waleed has married three times since splitting with Princess Dalal.)
The Prince's entrée into the North American business scene came in 1991, when he famously bailed out Citicorp to the tune of $800 million. Though al-Waleed thinks of himself as a Buffett-style value investor--he spends years researching a company or industry, waiting for the right price to buy in--he's made some spectacular missteps. Between 1997 and 1999, he invested $112 million in Planet Hollywood, only to see the restaurant chain file for bankruptcy a few months after his final cash infusion. He still insists his $345-million investment in Euro Disney will pay off--he owns 24% of the notoriously under-attended Paris theme park. But by far his biggest miscalculation came in 2000, when the Prince caught high-tech fever. He shovelled $200 million into WorldCom, $50 million into Priceline.com and millions more into other dot-coms just before the market collapsed.
He has fared much better in the luxury-hotel business. "I believe in brand names, and I believe in number one," al-Waleed told Khan. When it comes to his hotels, no detail is too small, from the wallpaper to the colour of the toilet seats. "I like things to be over-organized. . .and I get tired of seeing things that are not right," he says in the biography. "I really have very good staff that supports me. They have all that's going on in my mind implemented on the ground." For his entourage of 30-odd people, that means sticking to al-Waleed's schedule--he starts work at noon and goes until 4 a.m. or later--and planning his frequent round-the-world jaunts down to the last second. There is, of course, a tradeoff: The Prince has been known to hand over bonuses worth a year's salary for a job well done.
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Al-Waleed abandoned his old Riyadh palace in 1999 for a new, $130-million pile. It takes 150 staff to run the 460,000-square-foot, 317-room house, complete with an Olympic-sized pool and an Astroturfed soccer pitch. To ensure the news junkie is connected 24/7, the palace is equipped with 500 TVs and 400 phones.
Al-Waleed and Four Seasons founder Isadore Sharp had their first meeting, in 1994, on board the 83-metre 5-KR, which the Prince bought from Donald Trump for $19 million. The boat was previously owned by billionaire Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Though the Prince spends only a few weeks each year on board (usually berthed at Cannes), he employs a crew of 34. His design team is working on a new yacht, which he says will be the biggest and most luxurious in the world.
photographs courtesy Kingdom Holdings; (Car) courtesy rolls-royce
Known for his punishing travel schedule, the Prince recently upgraded from a 767 to a 747, the better to accommodate his entourage, which includes a barber, doctor, photographer and numerous bodyguards. It is the full-time job of two Bedouins to amuse him.
The Prince buys two of every car--one for himself and one for his bodyguards. Among his collection are two Rolls-Royce Phantoms (above), base price: $340,000; two Hummer H1s and two Daewoo Matizs (he owns a chunk of the Korean automaker). Warren Buffett, by the way, drives a 2001 Lincoln Town Car with the licence plate THRIFTY.
Al-Waleed owns 12 hunting falcons, each of which cost him $250,000. The raptors travel with him each weekend to his Bedouin-run desert camp.
Under the privatization, Sharp will remain CEO for at least three years-- and chairman for life, if he wants it
photograph amanda marsalis
In Hyderabad, Sharp's shock troops--
Kraenzlin, Rao and Moore--are settling in for a gruelling day.
Over the next seven hours, they will conduct more than
100 one-on-one interviews with some 80 students--
the best prospects are interviewed twice--with barely a break.
Chalta hai--"That's the way it is"--
does not exactly fit the Four Seasons philosophy,
so there's all the more reason
to be rigorous in scrutinizing job candidates.
\ APRIL 2007 REPORT ON BUSINESS
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