Mohamed Al-Fayed محمد الفايد |
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Fayed in 2011
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Born |
Mohamed Fayed Bakos, Alexandria, Egypt 27 January 1929 |
Residence | Geneva, Switzerland |
Nationality | Egyptian |
Occupation | Businessman Chairman of Hôtel Ritz Paris |
Net worth | US$2.0 billion (2015) |
Spouse(s) |
Samira Khashoggi (m. 1954–56) Heini Wathén (m. 1985) |
Children | 5, including Dodi Fayed |
Mohamed Al-Fayed (Arabic: محمد أنور شاكر عبد السيد الفايد; born 27 January 1929) is an Egyptian business magnate. Fayed's business interests include ownership of Hôtel Ritz Paris and formerly Harrods Department Store, Knightsbridge. Al-Fayed sold his ownership of Fulham F.C. to Shahid Khan in 2013.
Fayed has four siblings: Ali, Salah, Soaad and Safia. Fayed's eldest son, Dodi, from his first marriage to Samira Khashoggi, died in a car crash in Paris with Diana, Princess of Wales on 31 August 1997. Fayed married Finnish socialite and former model Heini Wathén in 1985, with whom he has four children: Jasmine, Karim, Camilla, and Omar. In 2013, Fayed's wealth was estimated at US$1.4 billion, making him the 1,031st-richest person in the world in 2013.
Born on 27 January 1929 in Bakos, Alexandria, Egypt, as the eldest son of an Egyptian primary school teacher.
He was married for two years, from 1954 to 1956, to Samira Khashoggi. Fayed worked for his wife's brother, Saudi Arabian arms dealer and businessman Adnan Khashoggi.
Mohamed Fayed has called himself "Al-Fayed" since the early 1970s, and his brothers Ali and Salah also styled themselves "Al-Fayed" at the time of their acquisition of the House of Fraser in the 1980s, though by the late 1980s Ali and Salah had reverted to calling themselves simply "Fayed". Fayed's addition of "Al-" to his name, which implies aristocratic origins, has led to Private Eye nicknaming him the "Phoney Pharaoh". According to his biographer Tom Bower, Fayed also claimed to have come from a town named Fayed after his family.