Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud (; born 7 March 1955) is a Saudi Arabian billionaire businessman, investor, and a House of Saud royal. In 2008, he was listed on Time magazine's Time 100, an annual list of the hundred most influential people in the world. Al Waleed is a grandson of Abdulaziz, the first king of Saudi Arabia, and of Riad Al Solh, Lebanon's first prime minister.
Al Waleed is the founder, chief executive officer (CEO) and 95 percent owner In 2013, the company had a market capitalization of over $18 billion. He owns Paris' Four Seasons Hotel George V and part of New York's Plaza Hotel. Time has called him the "Arabian Warren Buffett". In November 2017, Forbes listed Al Waleed as the 7th-richest man in the world, with a net worth of $39.8 billion.
On 4 November 2017, Al Waleed and other prominent Saudis (including fellow billionaires Waleed bin Ibrahim Al Ibrahim and Saleh Abdullah Kamel) were arrested in Saudi Arabia as part of Mohammed bin Salman's purge to centralize power in Saudi Arabia. The allegations against Al Waleed include money laundering, bribery, and extorting officials.
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Some of the detainees were held in the Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh. Al Waleed was released from detention on 27 January 2018, following a financial settlement of some kind, after nearly three months in detention. In March 2018 he was dropped from the World's Billionaires list due to lack of current information. He was listed in the 'Top 100 most powerful Arabs' from 2013 to 2021 by Gulf Business.
Early life and education
Al Waleed bin Talal was born in Jeddah on 7 March 1955 to Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz and Mona El Solh. 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 paternal grandparents were King Abdulaziz and Munaiyir. His grandmother, an Armenian, was presented by the emir of Unayzah to King Abdulaziz in 1921, when she was 12 years old and Abdulaziz was 45. His maternal grandparents were Riad Al Solh, the first prime minister of Lebanon, and Fayza Al Jabiri, the sister of Syrian Prime Minister Saadallah al-Jabiri.
Al Waleed's parents separated when he was seven, and he lived with his mother in Lebanon. finishing in two-and-a-half years, finishing in eleven months. Operating from a small, four-room cabin in Riyadh and $30,000 start-up money provided by his father, Al Waleed formed Kingdom Establishment in 1980. When that money ran out in a few months, he secured a $300,000 loan from the Saudi American Bank, partly owned by Citibank. Rather than taking a commission for facilitating contracts as the legally required middleman, Al Waleed insisted on a stake in the project. His first success was in 1982, partnering with a South Korean construction company, and from then on, his commissions were used to fund his real estate deals. In his own words, "All the money I used to get from this construction I would plough back into real estate, and in the stock market, both." The hostile takeover of USCB in 1986, the merger with SCB in 1997, and the merger of USB with SAMBA in 1999, were the first of their kind in the Kingdom. He then secured a majority in Al-Azizia Panda, merging it with the Savola Group, and took over National Industrialization Company.
In 1993, Al Waleed purchased a 10 percent stake in Saks Fifth Avenue for $100 million. A flagship store was then opened in Riyadh. for his satellite TV platform.
Then, in 1996, he bought the George V for $185 million, and spent $120 million renovating it for a reopening in Dec 1999. Regarding Al Waleed's investment in the George V, Issy Sharp states, "...he created value where no one else could..."
Time reported in 1997 that Al Waleed owned about five percent of News Corporation, which he purchased for $400 million, making him the third largest shareholder. In April 1999, Al Waleed purchased an additional $200 million of preferred shares.
In April 1997, Al Waleed purchased a 4 percent stake in Planet Hollywood for $57 million, and another 16 percent in November 1998 for $45 million.
In 2002, Al Waleed formed Kingdom Hotel Investments to oversee his hotel assets.
The 2004 Forbes list of wealthiest people had Al Waleed fourth, with a net worth of $21.5 billion. More than $1.3 billion was in hotel holdings.
In August 2011, Al Waleed announced that his company had contracted with the Saudi Binladin Group to build the world's tallest building, the Kingdom Tower (at a height of at least ) for SR 4.6 billion. The original plan—announced in 2008—called it برج الميل (Arabic for "One-Mile Tower"), at a height of and an estimated cost of $20 billion.
In December 2011, Al Waleed invested $300 million in Twitter, purchasing secondary shares from insiders. The purchase gave Kingdom Holding "more than 3% share" in the company, which was valued at $8 billion in late summer 2011.
In 2015, he announced that he would donate his fortune to charity at an unspecified date. He had previously donated $3.5 billion over the course of 35 years through his charitable organization Alwaleed Philanthropies.
From 2015 to 2021, he lost several lawsuits against Pierre El Daher, CEO of LBCI, and would be required to pay $22m, due to breaches in contract conditions with the Lebanese broadcaster.
In May 2022, he was listed as committing to purchase approximately 35 million shares of Twitter Inc. at or immediately prior to the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk and other private-equity investors behind Musk's bid.
Arrest and release
On 4 November 2017, Al Waleed was one of those arrested in Saudi Arabia in a "corruption crackdown" conducted by a new royal anti-corruption committee.