São Paulo – Saudi prince Alwaleed Bin Talal is the richest Arab in the world for the seventh year running, according to the ranking of 50 main fortunes in the Middle East and North Africa, disclosed on Sunday (19) by news site ArabianBusiness.com. His net worth is estimated at US$ 20.4 billion.
According to the publication, the Saudi magnate’s fortune grew 13.3% over last year, despite the global financial crisis. He presides Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), a conglomerate that operates in several sectors.
Bin Talal is the nephew of Saudi king Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud and is aged 55. His last deal of international repercussion was the purchase of 1% of General Motors, for US$ 500 million, in an initial public offering the company promoted in November. KHC has shares of other multinationals, like Citigroup and hotel chain Four Seasons, among others.
To measure the prince’s fortune, apart from the holding’s shares, the site calculated the shares he has apart outside KHC, his real estate and other assets, including aircraft and cars, as well as his deposits in cash.
Adding up the fortunes of the 50 richest Arabs, the total comes to US$ 245 billion, according to ArabianBusiness.com. The total is 18% greater than the list last year. The Saudis are the majority in the ranking, with 32 billionaires, including the top five, as well as 20 of the 24 newcomers to the study in 2010.
Together, the net worth of the richest Saudis is US$ 169.68 billion and what they have in common is the diversification of their assets. According to the site, most operate in at least five different areas. According to the publication, this leadership is boosted by the country’s great oil and foreign currency reserves.
Saudi Arabia did not suffer much with the global economic crisis due to the massive state investment and to the fact that the projects being developed in the country have great local participation. This tendency should continue into the next decade, according to ArabianBusiness.com.
For comparative purposes, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, respectively second and third in the list of main most billionaires in the list, had just four billionaires each.
The study takes into consideration not only personal fortunes, but also family assets. In this respect, those who grew most from one year to the next, in absolute terms, were the Olayan family, also from Saudi Arabia, whose net worth reached US$ 11.9 billion, US$ 5 billion more than in 2009.
The study also shows that the businessmen who lost most money with the crisis were in the building sector. Last year, according to the site, billionaire builders had aggregate fortunes of US$ 102 billion, a total that dropped to US$ 73 billion in 2010.
Trade was another sector that suffered. The net worth of businessmen in the sector dropped from US$ 83 billion to US$ 69 billion. On the other hand, the banking sector expanded its share from US$ 72 billion to US$ 85 billion.
The list also includes some internationally renowned personalities, like the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, and the Syrian Mansour Ojjeh, president of TAG group and one of the partners of Formula 1 team McLaren.
*Translated by Mark Ament
