HRH Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal |
|
---|---|
Native name | Alwaleed bin Talal |
Born |
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia |
7 March 1955
Residence | Riyadh, Saudi Arabia |
Nationality |
Saudi Arabian Lebanese |
Alma mater | Menlo College Syracuse University |
Occupation | Chairman & CEO of Kingdom Holding Company |
Years active | 1979–present |
Net worth | $17.4 billion (As of 19 September 2016[update]) |
Spouse(s) | Dalal bint Saud bin Abdulaziz (divorced) Eman bint Naser bin Abdullah al Sudairi (divorced) Ameera al-Taweel (divorced) |
Al-Waleed Bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud (Arabic: الوليد بن طلال بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود, born 7 March 1955) is a Saudi businessman, investor and philanthropist and a member of the Saudi royal family. He was listed on Time magazine's Time 100, an annual list of the hundred most influential people in the world, in 2008. Al-Waleed is a grandson of Ibn Saud, the first Saudi king, a half-nephew of all Saudi kings since, and a grandson of Riad Al Solh (Lebanon's first prime minister).
He is the founder, chief executive officer and 95-percent owner of the Kingdom Holding Company, a Forbes Global 2000 company with investments in companies in the financial services, tourism and hospitality, mass media, entertainment, retail, agriculture, petrochemicals, aviation, technology and real-estate sectors. The company had a market capitalization of over $18 billion in 2013. Al-Waleed is Citigroup's largest individual shareholder, the second-largest voting shareholder in 21st Century Fox, and owns Paris' Four Seasons Hotel George V and part of the Plaza Hotel.Time has called him the "Arabian Warren Buffett". In March 2016 Forbes listed Al-Waleed as the 41st richest man in the world, with an estimated net worth of $17.3 billion.
The previous year, he announced that he would donate his fortune to charity at an unspecified date. Some of the reasons he cited were to foster cultural understanding and empower women.
Al-Waleed was born in Jeddah on 7 March 1955 to Prince Talal and Mona Al Solh, daughter of Riad Al Solh (Lebanon's first prime minister). His father was Saudi Arabia’s finance minister during the early 1960s, before he went into exile due to his advocacy for political reform. Al-Waleed's grandmother was an Armenian, Munaiyir, whose family escaped the Armenian Genocide. She was presented by the emir of Unayza to Ibn Saud in 1921, when she was 12 years old and Ibn Saud was 45.