Prince of Saudi Arabia Al Waleed bin. How a Saudi prince fights animal husbandry

Childhood

Prince Al-Waleed ibn Talal ibn Abdulaziz Al Saud was born on March 7, 1955 into a royal family, the rank, rank or occupation of each member of which is truly impressive.

His father, Prince Talal ibn Ab-del Aziz, was the Minister of Finance; in the 60s he opposed the current government of King Faisal as part of the liberal movement. His grandfather - Riad As-Solh famous political figure, former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Al-Walid's uncle Salman is the reigning king of Saudi Arabia, and his maternal cousins ​​are the princes of Morocco - Moulay Hisham Angle and Moulay Ismail.

The kid was not yet four when his parents decided to divorce. Prince Al-Walid stayed with his mother, Princess Monica, and soon they moved to Beirut, where the guy spent his childhood.

Education

As befits children in royal families, Al-Waleed received a prestigious education. He went to study in America, where Menlo College in San Francisco was chosen for training. Here he received a bachelor's degree, after which he went to Syracuse University in New York. Here he studied with world-famous teachers in the social sciences.

Life in America was to the taste of the young prince - here he quickly got used to it, fell in love with business style clothes, fast food and Coca-Cola. It seemed pointless for a young, active and educated young man to return to his homeland.

The beginning of a business career and its successful continuation

Prince Al-Walid began his commercial activities in 1979. Taking out a loan of $350,000, he began providing intermediary services to foreign firms that planned to cooperate with Saudi Arabia. Thanks to the close relationship of the prince with quite influential people in the country, his debut in the business world turned out to be quite successful. In addition to mediation, Al-Walid was engaged in the purchase and resale of land. In 1980, Al-Waleed bin Talal founded the company "Kingdom".

One of the prince's most famous and successful investments was Citibank. In the 1990s, Al-Waleed acquired a significant stake in Citibank, which at that time was in a very difficult financial situation. By investing virtually all of his investments in Citibank, he saved it from total collapse. In the future, more than half of Al-Walid's fortune is precisely this company, which he once saved from falling.

The next successful acquisition for the prince was a block of preferred shares of Citigroup. Having bought the company's shares for next to nothing, Al-Walid did not fail - in early 1994, the shares literally soared in price, which significantly increased Al-Walid's capital.

The prince has been seen collaborating with Bill Gates and Microsoft, and is also known for his lavish investments in media companies.

"Arabian Warren Buffett"

Prince Alwaleed is often compared to another successful businessman, Warren Buffett, in reference to his impressive investment acumen. However, these two investors do not have much in common: Al-Waleed, if you look at it, has very few high-profile investments, and the most successful of them is still Citigroup. Buffett is famous for dozens of big deals.

These two businessmen are very different in their attitude to luxury. Warren Buffett lives in a house worth just over $30,000, while the prince owns a luxurious palace valued at over $100 million. Also, Al-Waleed, like most Eastern billionaires, has a weakness for expensive cars, private jets and luxury yachts. In 2012, the prince once again reminded of his love for luxury by purchasing the only instance of an elite aircraft to date. Al-Walid now owns a private Airbus-380 aircraft.

Forbes scandal

The annual rating published by Forbes magazine in 2013, as usual, consisted of people whose fortune has long been estimated in the billions. An Arabian businessman also appeared on the list. But if, according to the editors of the publication, the prince's assets amounted to 20 billion (he took 26th place in a hundred), then he himself announced a figure of $ 29 billion. A difference of almost ten billion could significantly affect his place in the rankings.

It is reported that Prince Al-Waleed sent a letter to the CEO of Forbes, in which he asked in an uncompromising manner that his name no longer appear in the publication's rankings. Not this year, or any other. Then he openly stated that he did not trust the publication, and the methods of assessing the state used by journalists are absolutely wrong and incorrect.

Forbes management did not tolerate such tricks that undermine the authority of the publication. Literally a few days later, a detailed article about Al-Walid was published on the official website of the magazine, in which a different point of view on the current situation was stated. According to the publication, the prince is too fixated on his own image, so long before the publication of the list, Al-Walid's PR managers demanded that the prince's fortune be assessed based on the data of his personal lawyers.

Charity

In 2015, the news spread around the world that the Prince of Saudi Arabia, Al-Walid, who was in his seventies, donated almost all of his life fortune to charity. According to preliminary estimates, about 32 billion were written off from the accounts of the billionaire. He admitted that Bill Gates, who also generously “shares” his personal fortune with his brainchild, the Gates Foundation, became an example for him. “This is my duty to humanity,” the prince said, mentioning that charity is an inalienable honor of his faith, Islam.

Donated funds will be used to build hospitals, schools, orphanages, to help countries affected by natural disasters, to help single mothers and other needy groups of people.

Personal life

Not much is known about the personal life of Prince Al-Walid: he was married three times, but this moment is not married. From the first wife named Delal, the prince has a son and a daughter. His next chosen one was Iman al-Sudairi, in this marriage Al-Walid did not have children. The third wife was chosen by Amir Al-Tawil - a very outstanding personality, although not of royal blood. Amira became the first princess in Saudi Arabia to refuse to wear the traditional dress of Saudi women - the abaya. The princess actively supports organizations and projects fighting for women's rights around the world.

Unfortunately, in the winter of 2014, the marriage of Princess Amira and Prince Al-Walid was annulled. Rumor has it that the spouses entered into a marriage contract, according to which Princess Amira could not have children. Most likely, this was the main reason for the divorce.

Every reporter who takes an interest in Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal can hope to one day receive a small gift from His Highness. The driver will bring a bulky green leather bag with the logo and name of al-Waleed's Kingdom Holding, which weighs at least 4.5 kilograms. Like a nesting doll, the green leather bag contains a green leather bundle, which in turn contains the annual report bound in green leather. The only thing not wrapped in leather is a dozen of the world's most famous magazines, each with a photo of a prince on the cover.

These magazines are the most eloquent item in a costly pile of information. On the cover of Vanity Fair, he appears as a typical member of high society: in mirrored glasses, a pale blue sports jacket and an open-necked shirt. He can be seen on the covers of two issues of Time 100: once in a collage alongside people like George Soros, Li Ka-shing and Queen Rania, and the second time alone, dressed in traditional Saudi taub and gutra. There's even a Forbes cover where he, dressed in a Steve Jobs-style turtleneck, glares at the reader imperiously, and the caption reads: "The most astute businessman in the world." But alone important detail does not change: all magazines are not real. Instead of simply sending out newspaper clippings, the Prince's staff has made or edited magazine covers from scratch and pasted them over fine glossy printed articles mentioning the Prince.

For Prince al-Walid, image is everything, and Special attention given to those who can provide additional proof of his status. He meets very important people. Ask him yourself. It looks like his staff prepares a press release with a photo every time he meets someone significant (Bill Gates), someone who might one day become significant (Twitter CEO Dick Costolo), or someone who seems significant (Ambassador of Burkina Faso to Saudi Arabia).

In 2003, he was photographed standing behind George W. Bush, King Abdullah of Jordan, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. When his authorized biography Alwaleed: Businessman, Billionaire, Prince was published in 2005, this photo was placed on the back cover: this time alwaleed was in the foreground thanks, as the prince later admitted in an interview with Forbes, photoshop. For several months, starting in the second half of 2011, the prince even began to put me in a hidden copy almost daily or forward his messages to me: some were addressed to the wife of the president of one European country, others to a well-known top manager of a large technology company in the United States, some to a cable talk show host. The content was transmitted under conditions of confidentiality, but the desire to impress was quite clear.

However, in terms of external confirmation of his status, his first priority, according to seven people who used to work for him, is the Forbes list of billionaires.

"He wants the world to judge his success or position in society through this list," says one former assistants a prince who, like most of his former colleagues, chose to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the richest man in the Arab world. "It's extremely important to him." Former employees say that the palace officially sets goals such as a place in the top ten or twenty.

However, for several years now, al-Walid's former managers have been telling me that the prince, although he is indeed one of the richest men in the world, systematically exaggerates his fortune by several billion dollars. This prompted Forbes to take a closer look at the prince's holdings and come to the following conclusion: at times it seems as if he takes the valuation of his holdings from another reality, including in relation to Kingdom Holding, whose shares are traded on the exchange. Their price falls and rises in accordance with factors that, oddly enough, have more to do with the Forbes billionaire list than with economic reasons.

Al-Waleed, 58, declined to speak to Forbes while writing this article, but his chief financial officer, Shadi Sanbar, was blunt: "I would never have thought Forbes would stoop to cheap scoops and rumours." The discrepancies in the assessment of the prince's fortune, which we noticed, say a lot about him and how to determine the true size of someone's wealth.

Luxury and persistence

Prince first came to the attention of Forbes in 1988, a year after our first billionaire issue. The source is the prince himself, who contacted a Forbes reporter to talk about the success of his Kingdom Holding for Trading & Contracting company - and make it clear that he should be included in the next list.

This message marked the beginning of a series of persuasion and threats that have been going on for a quarter of a century and associated with the position of the prince on the list. Of the 1,426 billionaires on the list, not one - not even the vain Donald Trump - has made much of an effort to influence his place in the rankings. In 2006, when Forbes concluded that the prince was actually worth $7 billion less than he claimed, he called me at home the day after the list came out and seemed to be on the verge of tears.

"What do you want? he pleaded, referring to his personal banker in Switzerland. "Tell me what you need."

A few years ago, he had the CFO of Kingdom Holding fly to New York from Riyadh to make sure Forbes was using the numbers he claimed. The financial director and his companion refused to leave the editorial office until they secured guarantees (after a detailed discussion, the editor convinced them to leave, promising to double-check everything). In 2008, at the request of the prince, I spent a week with him in Riyadh, where I examined his palaces, aircraft and jewelry, which, according to him, was worth $ 700 million.

Keeping up with Prince Al-Waleed, I learned from my week with him, requires stamina - and lots of caffeine. He regularly goes to bed no earlier than 4:30 in the morning, sleeps 4-5 hours, and then everything repeats. “Those who worked with the prince had no life,” recalls a former employee. “Working hours were extremely strange: from 11:00 to 17:00 and then from 21:00 to 2:00.” Even his twenty-something wife, Ameera al-Taweel, has to adjust to this schedule (she is his fourth wife, the prince has always been married to only one woman at a time). While I was there, the driver drove her every evening in a dark blue Mini Cooper to her own palace.

Every day he is surrounded by unimaginable luxury. His main palace in Riyadh has 420 rooms: marble, pools and his portraits.

If the prince needs to go on a business trip, he has his own Boeing 747, sort of like Air Force One, but unlike the president's plane, it has a throne. If al-Waleed wants to slow down, he goes to his "resort", located on 120 acres of land on the outskirts of Riyadh. There are five artificial lakes, a small zoo, a miniature version of the Grand Canyon, five houses and several verandas where his entourage dine.

This dinner is very important for al-Walid. To stay in shape, he eats one big meal a day around 8:00 pm, although given his biological rhythms, he calls it "lunch." On one side of him are the "palace ladies" who run the household in the house where the prince is at the moment, on the other - male servants. As a rule, all eyes in this semicircle are directed to the TV. And just in case anyone forgets the prince's spotlight, CNBC is usually on.

Call of blood

This craving for success, albeit in a veiled form, was inherited by him. If ever anyone felt compelled to succeed, it is Prince al-Walid, the grandson of the founders of two separate countries. His maternal grandfather was the first prime minister of Libya. His paternal grandfather, King Abdulaziz, created Saudi Arabia. “So he is in a position where he needs to prove his superiority in something,” says Saleh al-Fadl, a Saudi Hollandi Bank manager who has worked with the prince for several years since 1989 at his United Saudi Commercial Bank. While his royal cousins ​​are involved in Saudi politics - one is interior minister, others are governors - al-Walid, al-Fadl said, "wants to make a name for himself in business."

Al-Walid's father, Prince Talal, had an entrepreneurial streak and tried to reform as finance minister in the early 1960s until he was exiled for his progressive views. At the same time, when al-Walid was seven years old, he divorced his wife, the daughter of the first Prime Minister of Libya, who returned to her homeland with a young prince. There, according to his authorized biography, he developed a habit of running away from home for a day or two and sleeping in unlocked cars. Later, al-Walid attended a military school in Riyadh and still adheres to the rigid discipline he learned then.

Prince acquired a Western mentality while studying at Menlo College, in Atherton, California. Upon his return to Saudi Arabia, he became known as a person with whom foreign companies could cooperate if they needed a local partner. When he talks about his early career, he usually explains that he received $30,000 as a gift from his father, a $300,000 loan, and a house. Although even his biography does not give a clear idea of ​​how much more he received from family members, it is probably a lot, since by the age of 36 (in 1991) he was able to make life-changing business decisions.

While regulators forced Citicorp to increase its capital base in the face of bad loans in developing countries, al-Waleed, then unknown to anyone outside of Saudi Arabia, raised an $800 million stake. was already worth $10 billion, making al-Waleed one of the 10 richest men in the world at the time, and earning him the nickname he helped promote, "The Buffett of Saudi Arabia."

But unlike Warren Buffett, who picked winners for decades, al-Waleed has not proven himself to be a consistent investor.

For the past 20 years, he's supported underdogs like Eastman Kodak and TWA. Large investments in media (Time Warner and News Corp.) did not live up to expectations. While he had his fair share of successes, notably eBay and Apple, al-Waleed missed another opportunity when he sold most of the latter's shares in 2005. In other words, he has yet to repeat his success with his investment in Citi. “It was his biggest deal that got him noticed. It was a big risk, a big sum, a big bank,” a manager who was close to al-Walid in the past told Forbes. "Since then, he hasn't done anything even close to comparable."

Nevertheless, in the exaggerated world of al-Waleed, everything is unambiguous. On the homepage of Kingdom Holding's website, there are four words in large print: "The World's Best Investor."

When the prince decided to take Kingdom Holding public in July 2007, it sounded odd on paper. Although the CFO makes the usual arguments for publicity, the prince already owned 100% of the company. It consisted of holdings whose shares had already been placed on the stock exchange, and a miserable 5% were in free float. In other words, he had no partners to consider, no liquidity problems, and no desire to raise large capital - the three main reasons to go public and put up with all the attendant difficulties. Shares listed on stock exchange Saudi Arabia traded sluggishly. No analyst is purposefully following them. Inside the company, the mood is similar to the mood of glossy magazines produced by employees. "It was just fun," says a longtime employee of al-Waleed. - It was fun to go public. There is a buzz in the media."

How much money does the prince have?

Of course, media hype is only "fun" when the stock trades well. The prince, who was, as always, concerned about his image, had no doubt that he would. "I'm glad the IPO is going well," he told Arab News the day the listing took place. “It means the Saudis are realizing the potential of the #1 company in the kingdom.” Never mind that oil giant Saudi Aramco has flooded the economy with cash and supported legions of royalty for decades. "He intends to become the richest man and public figure, and he has achieved this," said al-Fadl from Saudi Hollandi Bank. “It will be much harder to maintain status.”

These words were confirmed shortly after the IPO. At the time of the listing, when Kingdom was valued at $17 billion, the majority of the company consisted of Citi stock, worth almost $9.2 billion. But the summer of 2007 marked the beginning of a long and precipitous decline that was accelerated by the onset of the global financial crisis. Since July 2007, Citi's share price has declined nearly 90%. Kingdom Holding shares fell between early 2008 and early 2009, losing 60% in value. As a result, the prince's fortune decreased by $8 billion and at the time of the release of the Forbes list of billionaires for 2009 reached only $13.3 billion.

But then, in early 2010, Kingdom Holding shares magically went up, and their price rose 57% in the 10 weeks to the day in February when Forbes finishes its next billionaire list, while Citigroup shares fell 20%. The prince has risen sharply in the Forbes rating to 19th place ($19.4 billion).

In 2011, the situation repeated itself. In the 10 weeks before Forbes finalized the list, Kingdom Holding stock rose 31%, while the Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange index rose 3% and the S&P 500 index rose 9%. (Prince al-Walid was ranked 26th in the world that year, and was worth an estimated $19.6 billion.) The same thing happened in 2012, when Kingdom shares rose 56% in the 10 weeks to mid-February, while the Saudi market rose only 11% and the S&P 500 index rose 9%. This time, al-Waleed was ranked 29th, with a fortune of $18 billion, after Forbes did not take into account his claims to many assets not owned by Kingdom Holding in the assessment.

At the same time, several former managers close to al-Walid began telling Forbes the same story: the prince used political weight to inflate his fortune.

Their testimonies were based on close observation of stocks, not direct evidence. But one manager said he couldn't find any other explanation for the fact that the share price rose sharply at the same time as the key asset, a large stake in Citi, fell.

"It's the national sport," says one of al-Waleed's early managers, offering his own explanation for the sudden swings in the market. - The players are few. They come with considerable funds and buy from each other. There are no casinos in the country. It's a gambling house for the Saudis." The same is said by an analyst who watches Saudi Arabia but preferred to remain anonymous because his remarks could damage his business ties: "This market is extremely easy to manipulate" - and even easier if you, like Kingdom Holding, - " Few shares in free float. CFO Sunbar replies, "No one can rationalize short-term changes in stock prices or market trends."

Whatever the driving force, last year was a record year. In 2012, Kingdom Holding's net income grew by only 10.5% to $188 million, the Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange index rose 6% and the S&P index rose 13%, but the value of Kingdom shares jumped 136%. Sunbar cites "the market's confidence that the company is able to deliver on its promises over time and deliver significant returns to shareholders."

Now the capitalization of Kingdom Holding is 107 times the amount of revenue - this does not fit into the value strategy that the prince uses as an investor. There are examples of this valuation: Amazon has a market capitalization of 224 times its pre-tax revenue in 2012. Sanbar also emphasizes that Tadawul had numerous others valuable papers, whose price in 2012 increased by more than 130%.

The problem with Kingdom is the discrepancy between the share price and real assets or economic fundamentals.

One-fifth of Kingdom's net assets are financial investments in shares, which trade at a multiple of 82% below the holding. And it hardly makes sense for investors to invest in the rest, because it is almost impossible to find out what belongs to the company. When the company went public, it issued a detailed 240-page prospectus listing shares in 21 companies, including predominantly US firms such as News Corp., Apple and Citi, as well as stakes in various hotels and properties in Saudi Arabia.

But so far, the prince's press office has been issuing almost daily releases about who he meets in annual reports and financial records for last years the names of the shares or holdings the company currently owns are missing, not even 7% of the voting shares in News Corp. are mentioned. We know about this acquisition from documents that News Corp. filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ernst & Young, Kingdom's auditors, were also concerned about the discrepancy between price and assets. In 2009 and 2010, they signed annual reports, but both times noted big difference between the market valuation of the shares and the valuation given by the holding. The difference was so big, the auditors say, that the prince invested 180 million of his own $600 million worth of Citi shares for free to Kingdom, just to avoid having to cut the share price. In other words, the prince was transferring 100% private assets to a public company where he owns only 95%, free of charge, in order to improve reporting and, possibly, market performance. What did Ernst & Young say in 2011? Nothing. They were replaced by Pricewaterhousecoopers at the annual meeting in March this year.

Sunbar told Forbes that no shares have been sold since 2008, but we do not know what shares were sold (if any) between July 2007 and the end of 2008. In January 2012, Kingdom issued a press release claiming that it had invested $300 million into Twitter, half from Kingdom Holding and half from the prince's personal funds. Sunbar confirmed that stakes in Apple, eBay, PepsiCo, Priceline, Procter & Gamble and some other companies have not changed. But as an investor in Kingdom, you won't know that from the annual report. A note to the 2012 financial statements lists $2.1 billion in unaudited private assets and writes one sentence: "The Equity segment's activities are concentrated in the US and the Middle East." This minimum level of disclosure “certainly wouldn’t pass common sense in the US,” says Jack Sisilsky, publisher of The Analyst’s Observer mailing list.

Sanbar's answer? "We are not a mutual fund, and there is no provision that we must disclose to anyone the composition of our portfolio."

Although the value of public companies is usually determined by the market, given Kingdom's opaqueness, low number of shares in circulation and questionable trading practices, Forbes decided to focus on real assets. We assessed returns on stakes in hotel management companies Four Seasons, Movenpick and Fairmont Raffles and, together with an investment banker specializing in the hospitality industry, applied a high multiple for public companies. We also calculated the net worth of shares in more than 15 Kingdom-owned hotels.

Including other holdings we were able to identify, including real estate in Saudi Arabia and a portfolio of stocks in the US and the Middle East, we value the Prince's stake in Kingdom Holding at $10.6 billion, or $9.3 billion less than the market share. grade.

Even if crediting the prince for most of his reported $9.7 billion assets outside of Saudi Arabia: Sanbar listed properties in Saudi Arabia estimated to be worth $4.6 billion, stakes in Arab media companies worth $1.1 billion (Forbes discounted this figure because the prince is using the current net worth of future earnings, and we are the current profit multiple) and another $3.5 billion in investments in public and private companies around the world - and even if you take into account the numerous aircraft, yachts, cars and jewelry, Forbes final estimate does not exceed $20 billion. Still richest man the Arab world. Still $2 billion more than last year. But $9.6 billion less than the prince himself claims. And since Forbes prides itself on its conservative valuation approach, in this case, we believe that in the event of a sale of assets, revenue would be even less.

Prince's Orders

A week before Forbes finalized the calculations, the prince gave his chief financial officer direct instructions that his place on the Forbes 2013 list be in line with his desires: more precisely, that his fortune be estimated at $ 29.6 billion, which will return him in the top ten of the ranking - the place he so dreamed of. Our source, who is not an employee of the company and is well acquainted with the way of thinking and style of speech of the prince, claims that the direct order to Sanbaru was worded as a requirement to "go to extreme measures."

This was followed by four detailed letters from Sunbar criticizing our journalists and our methodology for being biased towards the prince. “Why does Forbes apply different standards to different billionaires, is it because of our origins?” Sanbar asked.

In one of the emails, Sunbar insisted that the value of Kingdom's holdings had skyrocketed, but did not elaborate. He did, however, mention that Kingdom had reduced unrealized portfolio losses by nearly $1 billion since 2008. In another letter, he says that the Saudi Securities Market Commission spent 12 months analyzing the Kingdom's 2007 IPO. “It harms the establishment of Saudi-American relations. Forbes' actions are offensive to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and incompatible with the pursuit of progress."

Finally, Sunbar insisted that al-Waleed's name be removed from the list of billionaires if Forbes did not raise his fortune. As Forbes asked more and more specific questions in the course of checking the factual basis of this article, the prince unilaterally announced through his office the day before publication that he was going to "sever ties" with Forbes' list of billionaires. "Prince al-Waleed made this decision because he felt he could no longer participate in a process that is based on distorted data and seems to be aimed at discrediting investors and institutions in the Middle East."

“Over the years, we have been willing to work with the Forbes team and repeatedly point out flaws in the methodology that needed to be corrected,” Sanbar said in a statement. “However, after several years of our attempts to correct the errors, we came to the conclusion that Forbes was not going to improve the accuracy of their assessment of our holdings, and decided to move on.”

And how did the prince inform us of his decision? With a press release.

Translation by Natalia Balabantseva

Editorial. In 2013, Prince Al-Waleed ibn Talal filed a lawsuit against Forbes magazine, accusing the publication of downplaying his fortune and taking only 29th place in the Forbes rating with $ 20 billion. The prince himself estimated his fortune at $ 29.6 billion, with which he would be in the top ten richest people in the world. In 2015, both sides said that the legal conflict had been settled "on mutually acceptable terms". In the global ranking of billionaires in 2017, the prince ranked 45th.

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

ALEXEY ALEKSEEV

student child

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

Prince Khalid bin al-Walid al-Saud was born in 1978 in California. Not the most common 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, a professor at the obscure American Menlo College, decided to take a vacation in Saudi Arabia. He told the Saudis he knew that he worked at a small private business school that provided a very good education for a lot of money. The professor could hardly guess what would happen next.

Soon the first students from Saudi Arabia appeared in the college. After the oil boom of the 1970s began, their number began to grow rapidly. To date, more than 100 members of the Saudi royal family have graduated from Menlo College. Other families in 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 students from Saudi Arabia among college students exceeds their share in any other educational institution USA.

In 1975, Prince Al-Waleed ibn Talal ibn Abdulaziz al-Saud, grandson of the founder and first king of Saudi Arabia, entered the college. Years later, this prince, who holds a BBA from Menlo College, would be known as the Saudi Warren Buffett.

The prince will swear at Forbes magazine because it underestimates the size of his fortune. The magazine's latest estimate puts it at $18.7 billion, making Prince Al-Waleed the 45th richest person on the planet. Bloomberg estimated his net worth at $17.8 billion in November.

But then, 43 years ago, it was just a moderately well-fed young man who came to California to learn how to make money. IN next 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 graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in sociology by correspondence. In his free time, he worked part-time. He mortgaged the house given to him by his father. He sold a necklace given by his father to his wife. Money wisely invested. He was engaged in real estate, construction, bought banks. Slowly went into international investors, became a billionaire.

His The only son and the heir Prince Khalid lived with his father in the palace. When Prince Khalid was four years old, he developed younger sister Rome. A little later, the parents divorced. Then my father remarried and divorced again.

In 1997, the family, consisting of a single father with two teenage children, celebrated their housewarming by moving to a new palace in the center of Riyadh. There were 317 rooms in the palace, almost every one had a TV set. Italian marble, oriental carpets, golden faucets in the bathrooms, five kitchens (for Lebanese, Arabic, European continental and Asian cuisines and a separate one for sweets). In the yard - a swimming pool, in the basement - a cinema. The single father also had a yacht bought from the American developer Donald Trump, several personal planes and hundreds of three cars, with one Rolls Royce considered to be his daughter's.

Even buying a personal yacht, Prince Al-Walid has shown himself to be a talented investor. He bought it at a discounted price from real estate developer D. Trump during a downturn in the real estate market. In the photo - Prince al-Walid with his son Khalid and daughter Reem

Photo: Balkis Press/ABACAPRESS/Kommersant

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

In the year of the 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 ​​life. Despite five kitchens and a crowd of cooks capable of preparing a meal for 2,000 people in an hour, Prince al-Walid decided that he needed to lose weight and generally lead healthy lifestyle life.

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

Animal farms - to the dustbin of history

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

In Saudi Arabia, he wears traditional clothes, but in America he wears jeans, a hoodie, a baseball cap and black Converse sneakers (the upper, of course, is made of artificial leather). True, during foreign trips 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 a 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 own company KBW Investments. He has business interests on all continents. But in addition to investments in traditional business areas (construction, mining, automotive, hospitality, media), Prince Khalid also invests in high technologies - mobile payments, smartphone applications, energy saving. He helped launch the popular website TechnoBuffalo, dedicated to consumer electronics and new technologies.

The prince is very concerned about environmental issues. He has abandoned investments in oil and gas, the industry most associated with Saudi Arabia. He has only one car - a Tesla electric car. Outside his native kingdom, he prefers Uber. Khalid believes that the world is facing an ecological catastrophe 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 talks about how inhumane the meat industry is and what harm it does to the environment. The second is about what kind of food benefits the body, and what causes harm. According to the prince, films literally opened his eyes. The prince had another reason to think about food. Khalid at that time weighed 105 kg. The level of cholesterol in his blood was greatly elevated. Thanks to veganism, he lost 82 kg in seven months and brought his cholesterol back to normal. Before and after photos are now posted on his Facebook.

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

The prince calculates that he can achieve the goal within 10 years through strategic investments in new agricultural methods that will ensure that the world's population has enough plant-based proteins.

Shortly before this interview, the prince started a page on Facebook. 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 the traditional diet, disaster is inevitable: “We must boycott restaurants fast food and take care of our health and the health of our children before this catastrophe occurs.”

Last February, the first vegan gourmet restaurant with a very simple name, Cafe Plant, opened in the Kingdom of Bahrain. 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 hit upon a better idea - to invest in the Kenny restaurant chain. The Cafe Plant restaurant has become part of this chain. It is well located opposite the most prestigious English-taught school in the country.

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

Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for NYCWFF

During the year, many enthusiastic reviews about the restaurant appeared on travel websites. Everyone, even people who are far from vegan, unanimously admire the taste of the 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 is aware that this will not change the situation much, but it will be a step in the right direction.

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

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

Last September, Prince Khalid's company was among the investors who invested $17 million in San Francisco-based startup Memphis Meats. This company is working on the technology to create "clean meat" grown from animal cells in the laboratory. Among the investors who supported the startup are Bill Gates, Richard Branson and the Draper Fisher Jurvetson venture fund, 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 the Hampton Creek grocery company, which manufactures and sells vegetarian food products. The company is also developing "clean meat" and plans to bring it to market later this year.

One day, Prince Khalid went to the 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 ..."

The prince wrote: "Do away with animal farms."

The East is not alive only by Sheikh Moza. In hot and desert Saudi Arabia on November 6, 1983, Princess Amira Al-Tawil, the wife of Saudi Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, was born.

Princess Amira is the wife of Saudi Prince Al-Walid bin Talal. She is Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Al Waleed bin Talal Foundation, an international non-profit organization that supports programs and projects to combat poverty, disaster relief, women's rights and interfaith dialogue. The princess is also on the board of trustees of "Silatech", international organization on youth employment.

Princess Amira is a graduate of the University of New Haven (USA) with a degree in business administration. She defends the rights of women, incl. and the right to drive a car, get an education and get a job without having to ask permission from a male relative. Amira herself has an international driver's license and drives a car on all foreign trips herself. Known for her impeccable taste in dress, Amira is the first Saudi princess to refuse to wear the traditional abaya in public like other women in the kingdom.

Lecture at the business school in Barcelona

The Princess is Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Al-Waleed bin Talal Foundation, an international non-profit organization that supports programs and projects to combat poverty, the consequences of disasters, women's rights and interfaith dialogue.

Opening of the Forum of Arab Women Leaders

With husband

Amira is the first Saudi princess to refuse to wear the traditional abaya in public, like other women in the kingdom. The princess herself is not of royal blood.

Amira's husband Prince al-Waleed ibn Talal ibn Abdulaziz Al Saud, better known as Prince al-Walid, is a member of the Saudi royal family, an entrepreneur and an international investor. Made his fortune on investment projects and buying shares. In 2007, his net worth was estimated at $21.5 billion (according to Forbes magazine). Al-Walid ibn Talal al-Saud ranks 22nd in the list of the richest people in the world.

The prince does not hold public office, he is the grandson of King Abdulaziz and the nephew of the current king. In addition, he became famous as the most progressive Saudi prince, stands for equal rights for women in Saudi Arabia.

Prince al-Waleed ibn Talal ibn Abdulaziz Al Saud, on board his own yacht with son Khaled and daughter Reem. 1999

According to various sources, Amir is his 3rd or 4th wife (the only one at the moment, he never had several wives at the same time). They have no children, the prince has two children from his first marriage. They say that in their marriage contract it is written that the princess cannot have children. How true this is, but such information often accompanies the discussion of this couple.

Princess Amira is in New York for the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. It was founded by Bill Clinton to combat such global problems as poverty and disease. She and her husband have done something that she believes will help bridge the gap "between faiths and cultures." The Al-Walid Family Foundation helped open the Islamic art wing at the Louvre in Paris, donating approximately $20 million to the project. "Art opens people's minds in a different way," says Princess Amira.

She likes to open minds. Back in her homeland of Saudi Arabia, which is notorious for banning women from driving, dating men and until recently banning them from voting, Amira is a vocal advocate for women's rights. She says that divorced women in Saudi Arabia are required to give up custody of their daughters, and that female lawyers are not allowed to speak in court.

According to her, she drives a car "in the desert", where she gets away with it. “Women in rural areas have much more freedom than women in the city,” she notes. - They can drive. They don't wear an abaya." She herself put on a yellow jacket for the meeting, her dark hair was not covered by anything.

Amira says she is friends with Saudi activist Manal Al-Sharif, who is famous for boldly posting videos of her driving a car on YouTube. For this, she was jailed for a week. The princess calls Manal a "fearless woman" and believes that driving rules should be changed.

“I think it's enough for the king to say, 'Women can drive. Those who don't want to don't have to do it,” she says. The Princess calls King Abdullah's recent decision to allow women to vote on municipal elections. At the same time, she notes that many religious figures were against it. “He believes in empowering women,” the princess says. "I think he's the right person to do it."

Amira, 30, denies that her activism gets her into trouble in public spheres. “Everyone knows me,” she says. - I communicate with extreme conservatives and with extreme liberals. My goal is not to create a negative attitude, but unity.”

In her opinion, the West often gets the wrong idea about Saudi Arabia. Amira notes that only bad news makes headlines, good news does not. “56% of university graduates are women,” she says. - We watch the television series "Seinfeld", "Friends", presidential d:) you - America is loved by many people in Saudi Arabia. I swear to God, if you come, you will see that the Saudis are watching American TV.”

The princess refers to a recent feature in Newsweek about a conservative woman in Saudi Arabia, emphasizing: “She doesn't represent all women… she's extremely conservative. And seventy percent of the people of Saudi Arabia are people from the golden mean.” However, Amira says she respected the article because it showed the extreme conservatism of the woman's family. And she loves that one of the photos shows young Saudi college girls laughing in trendy sunglasses.

With Sheikha Moza

Princess Amira studied literature at the University. King Saud in Saudi Arabia, as well as management at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, although she lived in her homeland while studying at an American university. According to Amira, she was acquainted with the professor of this university, and the learning process was in the nature of close cooperation with numerous phone calls and visits.

"What's important about American education is that you're exposed to a lot - classical music, comparative religion... you learn about Hinduism and Buddhism," she shares her impressions. But the princess refuses to talk about her personal life. According to her, she comes from a middle class family and her mother is divorced.

Her latest project was the Opt4Unity initiative, which is being implemented through the Al Waleed Foundation. Like the Clinton Global Initiative, its idea is to bring together an "extraordinary team" of business leaders, investors and philanthropists to address the world's employment, food and education challenges. “We are all talking about people who can make a difference,” says Princess Amira. "Let's do something"

Princess Amira receives the 2012 Woman Leader of the Year award at the 11th Middle East Women Leaders Awards in Dubai.

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

P.S.
On October 10, 2013, Dubai hosted a large-scale and unprecedented event for the UAE - Vogue Fashion Dubai Experience, organized by the Italian edition of Vogue and investment company Emar Properties.

The event was held in mall The Dubai Mall and consisted of three parts. The first of them included fashion shows, exhibitions, movie screenings and much more. Guests of the mall could admire the collections of more than 250 world brands. Next, the guests were treated to a gala dinner, which was also attended by celebrities from the world of fashion and art, and Italian operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo and American Ballet Theater dancer Roberto Bole presented their performances.

The third part of the evening was a charity auction with unusual items: from a gold Versace pendant to a customized Valentino dress or a weekend at the Armani Hotel. The event ended up raising around $1.4 million in a full day of sales, which will be donated to Dubai Cares, a charity that educates children from developing countries.

Princess Amira Al-Taweel was also present.