How a prince from Saudi Arabia fights animal husbandry. The private jet of Prince al-Walid ibn Talal ibn Abdulaziz al-Saud ... (4 photos) Prince of Saudi Arabia al Walid

In mid-April 2004, one of the brightest and strongest players, an Arab field commander, left the political scene in Chechnya. A significant part of his life passed in the shadow of another famous Arab commander -. And even now, more than two years after the "Black Arab" went to another world, the identity of his deputy, as well as the circumstances of his death, are still shrouded in mystery. We can only lift the veil of this mystery to a small extent, because any information about this character is unlikely to be complete and reliable.

Abu al-Walid's real name was Abd al-Aziz al-Ghamidi. He was born in 1967 in the Saudi province of Baljurashi to a real estate, timber and paint merchant, Said bin Ali al-Ghamidi. Since Abd al-Aziz was the second of the eleven sons of Said bin Ali, he could not count on any significant part of his father's inheritance. Perhaps that is why he chose a life full of turbulent adventures as an ideological mercenary, fighting equally for money and for religious beliefs.

The tribal origin of Abd-al-Aziz also contributed to this. The fact is that al-Ghamidi is an old Saudi surname, descended from the Hamid tribe and has always been distinguished by significant religious zeal. Individual members of this family managed to achieve high positions in the Saudi hierarchy. So, until recently, the Saudi consul in Moscow was Abdullah al-Ghamidi. However, Abd-al-Aziz, the son of a merchant, hardly hoped to become a consul and from the very beginning he could rely only on his own energy. Two other “scions of a noble family”, Ahmad Ibrahim al-Khaznawi al-Ghamidi and Said al-Ghamidi, who, on September 11, 2001, along with two other terrorists, hijacked a Boeing 757 that crashed in Pennsylvania, were counting on the same thing. now believed to be the result of a fight between passengers and air pirates.

In general, the family ties of Abu al-Walid are quite confusing. On the one hand, his parents' family lives and lives in Saudi Arabia. In Chechnya, Abu al-Walid married a Chechen woman, who bore him two sons, Omar and Saleh. On the other hand, for some reason there are persistent rumors among Chechen fighters that Abu al-Walid was a cousin of the Jordanian Khattab. But, one way or another, al-Walid really for most of his combat biography was, as it were, the “younger brother” of the “Black Arab”, working for him “on the hook” and considering himself his governor.

The young Abu al-Walid took his first steps as a fighter in Afghanistan, fighting there with Khattab against Soviet army. Later, after the establishment of the Taliban regime, he repeatedly visited Afghanistan, took additional training courses there and was considered one of the first-class explosives specialists.

After Afghanistan, Abu al-Walid was seen in Yugoslavia, where he fought on the side of the Bosnian Muslims. His participation in the first Chechen campaign is questionable: at that time he comprehended the intricacies of mine-explosive business in the camp of the Afghan Taliban. His first reliable appearance in Chechnya can be attributed to 1997: he made his way to the territory of the rebellious republic from Afghanistan through Tajikistan. Moreover, he almost immediately became a confidant of Khattab and his right hand, being responsible for the supply and monetary allowance of the militants. True, at first he occupied relatively modest positions in the gangster hierarchy: for example, according to documents captured in Grozny in February 2000, Abu al-Walid was listed as a lieutenant colonel and deputy commander of a battalion of the Khattab Islamic Regiment, which consisted mainly of Arab veterans - mercenaries.

During the existence of Maskhadov's "Ichkeria", the republic was in the field of Osama bin Laden's closest attention. He pinned great hopes on independent Chechnya, intending to turn it into a springboard for the forces of international terrorism, from which it would be convenient to launch an offensive against Dagestan in order to turn the Caucasus into a “Wahhabi fortress” and one of the strongholds of the future “caliphate”. Of all those of Chechen origin, only the one who was killed on February 28 of this year could boast of personal contacts with terrorist No. 1. However, the main vertical of power in Wahhabi Chechnya was built exclusively from Arabs.

Four Arab "international" terrorists were responsible for Chechnya before Osama bin Laden: Khattab, Abu Jafar, Abu Umar and Abu al-Walid. The first three, as is known, were eliminated during the second Chechen campaign. And only now the Chechen militants have lost al-Walid, for the elimination of which the Russian authorities once announced a reward of 100 thousand dollars.

Together with Khattab, Abu al-Walid took an active part in the attack on Dagestan, hoping to turn this republic, like Chechnya, into a "Sharia state." But this time the militants' affairs were far from being as successful as in the first Chechen war. And when they were driven back to Chechnya and the second Chechen campaign began, things went frankly badly for the Arab mercenaries.

Luck also left al-Walid. In March 2000, a group led by Achimez Gochiyaev, trained by al-Walid to carry out terrorist acts in Russia, failed and was neutralized. Of all the members of the gang, only Gochiyaev managed to escape. And in the same month, a relative of al-Walid, Yaqub al-Ghamidi, was killed.

Before Khattab had at his disposal about a thousand experienced Arab militants, many of whom began to fight with him in Afghanistan and Bosnia. Hiding behind the Chechens and Dagestani Wahhabis, Khattab was able to save most of his forces and withdraw them to Chechnya. In the fall of 1999, hard times came for them. Despite the fact that they could still count on the support of the population, especially in the southern regions of Chechnya, among the mass of ordinary Chechens, there was a growing rejection of the order that Khattab, Abu al-Walid and other Arab field commanders carried with them.

However, Khattab still had two main trump cards in his hands - firstly, his “Islamic Regiment”, and, secondly (and more importantly), control over the funds flowing into Chechnya on behalf of various extremist and terrorist organizations, primarily from "Muslim Brotherhood".

Along with the first defeats, strife began among the Chechen and Arab commanders over the distribution of these funds. The Chechens (and some of the foreign "sponsors") rightly accused the Arabs of embezzling a large part of the material aid. Gradually, the financial flow to Chechnya began to dry up - most of the funds, as the investigation of the Muslim Brotherhood showed, were stolen by Khattab and his inner circle, like Abu Umar or Abu Sayyah. During the war, Khattab, in collusion with some functionaries of the Muslim Brotherhood, was able to embezzle several tens of millions of dollars.

Abu al-Walid, although he was the right hand of Khattab, was not directly and openly involved in this theft. Therefore, they began to predict him for the post of plenipotentiary representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in Chechnya, that is, for the place of Khattab. The latter, of course, could not stand and watch how he was wiped away from big money and from sole power over the militants.

Of all the commanders, Khattab really trusted very few people. He has always been his confidant, but this can be explained more by the coincidence of the interests of the two leaders than by sincere trust between them. At the same time, Khattab always positioned Basayev for the role of the formal head of the militants, preferring to be " gray cardinal”and manage from behind Basayev’s back. For example, as soon as in 2001 the commander Ramzan Akhmadov began to be nominated for the role of the leader of the Wahhabis on his "military merits", Khattab immediately ordered to eliminate him, which was carried out by the Arab Yakub from the Akhmadov detachment.

Now it can be considered proven that in the autumn of 2001 a "black cat ran" between two Arab commanders. Abu al-Walid, as the "chief quartermaster", began an investigation into the disappearance of money intended for the militants, and, having received no direct evidence, nevertheless came to the conclusion that Khattab was behind this. Since the “public opinion” of the militants was on the side of al-Walid, who presented himself as something like a selfless fighter for the faith, Khattab was in a dangerous position. But he began to think about the possibility of leaving Chechnya long before that.

During the summer and fall of 2001, Khattab was able to eliminate almost all of his associates involved in his machinations. Moreover, this was done most often by the hands of the Russian military, since Khattab sent these field commanders on difficult and dangerous missions. So Abu Darr, Abu Umar and Abu Yakub were destroyed, and later Abu Sayyah.

Meanwhile, behind Khattab's back, Abu al-Walid began to weave a conspiracy to remove his boss. He was able to directly contact Muslim Brotherhood functionaries such as Abu Rabia, and began to try to control the distribution of funds himself. Of course, Khattab could not forgive such a thing.

Back in September 2001, he accused Abu al-Walid of plotting something against him and threatened to kill him. During the winter of 2001-2002, Khattab developed an operation to eliminate his deputy. To this end, Abu al-Walid was placed in charge of the danger zone south of Grozny.

Abu al-Walid understood perfectly well what kind of action his boss was preparing, and decided to play ahead of the curve. First of all, he prepared a “fallback option” - Abu Rabia, who was in Tbilisi, prepared documents for him, civilian clothes and a route to Georgia. Having secured a possible retreat for himself, Abu al-Walid began to act.

To begin with, he enlisted the support of responsible figures from the Muslim Brotherhood group named Shagran and Abu Kuteiba. Abu al-Walid was able to convince them that Khattab and no one else is to blame for the decline in terrorist activity, as he appropriates money, preventing the recruitment of new militants, the purchase of weapons, explosives, ammunition and equipment.

Death was getting closer and closer to Khattab. In January 2002, the last (after Abu Yakub and Abu Sayyakh) financier of Khattab, Oybek Rasimov, nicknamed "Uzbek", was killed. With his death, Khattab lost his last close commander, whom he could fully trust.

But Abu al-Walid could not "topple" Khattab as long as he had powerful advocates in the Muslim Brotherhood. One of these people was a certain Abu Jaber, who all the time tried to embellish the achievements of Khattab and attributed to his sponsors clearly inflated combat results. An example of such activity is the bandit operation in Argun in December 2001, carried out by people from the so-called "Argun Jamaat" headed by Ismail Eskiev. The latter, before the start of the operation, tried to get money through Abu al-Walid, who unambiguously set him on Khattab, wanting to provoke a serious “showdown” with the latter. However, Eskiev died in battle, and Abu Jaber was able to attribute all the results to Khattab.

Convinced of the impossibility of removing Khattab through the sheikhs of the Muslim Brotherhood, Abu al-Walid decided to eliminate Khattab physically, which he managed to do at the end of February. True, after that, even such supporters of him as Abu Kuteiba turned their backs on Abu al-Walid. But the position of Khattab's deputy eventually ensured that al-Walid took his place after the death of the Black Arab.

Balancing on the contradictions between the field commanders and their foreign patrons, Abu al-Walid al-Ghamidi was able to acquire the same dominant position in the distribution of financial flows, which was occupied by Khattab, who was killed with his help. So, for one terrorist act in the Moscow metro on February 6, 2004, Abu al-Walid received four and a half million dollars, most of which he embezzled.

However, in the two years that have passed since the death of Khattab, the situation in Chechnya has become much less favorable for the militants, and the money for terrorist acts has become much less, and it has become increasingly difficult to carry them out. Therefore, Abu al-Walid, according to many experts, was going, like Khattab, to leave Chechnya and move to other regions of the world where one could still earn good money by waging a terrorist war.

The rocket and bomb attack on the mountain base where al-Walid was located on April 16, 2004, put an end to his presence in Chechnya. And it doesn’t matter anymore whether he was killed (as most likely happened) or staged own death to leave Chechnya. It is important that this was the last major representative of the Arab "old guard" Khattab, who acted in connection with international terrorists and received money from them. Those who now remain in Chechnya are mostly privates and non-commissioned officers of the terrorist army. They still have the strength for daring sorties, but it is unlikely that there will ever be sufficient authority to force serious international terrorists to respect themselves in the way that Emir Khattab and his “younger brother” Abu al-Walid al-Ghamidi did.

Every reporter who takes an interest in Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal can hope to one day get 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 one important detail does not change: all magazines are fake. 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-Waleed, image is everything, with particular attention being paid to those who can provide further 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 Saudi Arabia Abdullah 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 Bcc me almost daily or forward his messages to me: some were addressed to the wife of the president of a European country, others to a well-known top manager of a large technology company in the United States, some to the leading talk shows on cable channels. 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 evaluate his success or position in society through this list,” says one of the former aides to the prince, who, like most of his former colleagues, chose to remain anonymous for fear of revenge 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 the Saudi Arabian stock exchange are trading 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 did it,” says al-Fadl of 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 while the prince's press office releases almost daily releases about who he meets, annual reports and financial filings in recent years are missing the names of the shares or holdings that the company currently owns, not even mentioning 7% of the voting shares in News Corp. . 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, from annual report you won't know about it. 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.

Elena Mordashova, ex-wife"Steel King", lives in Moscow. Today she works at commercial company and does not want to discuss the fate and actions of her husband. She considers her six-year-old attempt to avenge her ruined life and her abandoned son stupid and naive. She is not going to repeat it. The one who has more money she is sure.

Mordashov's son, Ilya, did not want to take his father's surname and took his mother's surname. Ilya studies at the institute, where he is known not as the exiled heir to the steel empire, but as a laconic and reserved guy. Ilya does not tell anyone about his father, whom he last saw more than seven years ago.

Former CEO of Severstal Yuri Lipukhin after his "overthrow" from his post CEO Combine gave only one big interview. The children and relatives of Lipukhin protect their elderly father from the obsessive attention of the press and those who are trying to use the former head of the plant to attack Mordashov. Most of the time Lipukhin lives in Sochi, reading books and tending the garden.

In a new marriage, Alexei Mordashov had three children ...

$21 billion

Prince Al Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud

Prince Al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud

The wealth of the ruling Saudi dynasty is not usually associated with business acumen, financial luck or hard work. The only exception is the multi-billion dollar fortune of Prince al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. Having become chairman of his own company at 14 and a billionaire at 31, Prince Al-Waleed, now 51, is a typical Western-style businessman who created himself and his capital, now estimated at $21 billion.

At the beginning of the 20th century, King Ibn Saud, with fire and sword, managed to unite the disparate tribes of the Arabian Peninsula into one state. Since 1932, the Saudi dynasty has been the ruling royal dynasty of Saudi Arabia and the custodian of one of the main common Muslim shrines - the Kaaba temple in Mecca. The al-Saud clan has over a thousand princes and princesses. The most famous of them - Prince al-Walid - stands out not only for the size of his fortune, but also for his high hierarchical position in the clan: he is the nephew of the current king of Saudi Arabia.

Al-Walid was born in 1957 from the marriage of the Prince of Blood of the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia and the daughter of the first Prime Minister of Lebanon. The parents divorced when the child was three years old, and until his 11th birthday, the boy lived with his mother in Beirut. The young offspring of the royal family was sent to America to be educated. Here, the prince graduated from Menlo College in San Francisco (has a bachelor's degree in business administration) and a master's degree in social sciences from Syracuse University in New York.

An adherent and guardian of Wahhabism in America became addicted to morning jogging, fell in love with Coca-Cola, masterfully mastered the ability to wear business suits and, they say, was even an active participant in rampant student parties.

The prince began his business activities in 1979 by providing intermediary services to foreign companies that wanted to do business with Saudi Arabia. Given the prince's proximity to the royal family and his informal influence in the region, the start was successful. In 1980, al-Waleed bin Talal established the Mamlaka Company (Kingdom in English). He himself says that he created the business with the help of $30,000 borrowed from his father and a $400,000 loan secured by a house donated by his parent. Al-Waleed continued to actively use his privileged position, obtaining lucrative construction contracts and buying land at reduced prices for subsequent resale. However, according to al-Walid himself, his contracts and real estate deals in the Riyadh district were nothing more than a “glare on the radar screen.” The metaphor used by the prince cannot be called anything other than a Freudian slip: at that time, the prince was even more interested in war than in business.

The war in Afghanistan was sacred to devout Muslims. The Saudi dynasty, at the head of Wahhabism, could not remain aloof from the events in Afghanistan. And al-Walid actively helped the Afghan Mujahideen in the fight against the Soviet Union. In 1981, the prince even had a chance to visit training camps in Peshawar, where the Mujahideen received combat training. However, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 and the outbreak of civil war in that country, al-Walid stopped sending money there. According to him, he made his last donation to the Mujahideen in April 1990, giving them $5.4 million.