زندگینامه (بیوگرافی) ولید بن طلال بن عبدالعزیز، ثروتمندترین فرد جهان عرب

Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud (Arabic: الوليد بن طلال بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود‎, born 7 March 1955) is a Saudi businessman, billionaire, 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 November 2017 Forbes listed Al-Waleed as the 45th richest man in the world, with an estimated net worth of $18 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.

On 4 November 2017 he was arrested in Saudi Arabia, in an anti-corruption drive, together with, among others, Waleed bin Ibrahim Al Ibrahim and Saleh Abdullah Kamel. The allegations against Prince Al-Waleed include money laundering, bribery, and extorting officials.

Early life and education

Al-Waleed was born in Jeddah on 7 March 1955 to Prince Talal bin Abdul-Aziz, long-time known as The Red Prince, 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.

Al-Waleed"s parents separated when he was seven, and he lived with his mother in Lebanon. As a boy, he ran away from home for a day or two at a time (sleeping in unlocked cars) before attending military school in Riyadh. Al-Waleed received a bachelor"s degree in business administration from Menlo College in California in 1979, and a master"s degree with honors in social science from Syracuse University in 1985.

Business career

Al-Waleed began his business career in 1979 after graduating from Menlo College. He returned to Saudi Arabia, which was in the midst of the 1974–85 oil boom. Operating from a small, pre-fabricated office in Riyadh, al-Waleed was successful in construction contracts and real estate. He was first profiled by Forbes in 1988.

After the end of the Saudi oil boom, al-Waleed acquired the underperforming United Saudi Commercial Bank. Through mergers with Saudi Cairo Bank and the Saudi American Bank, it became a leading Middle Eastern bank.

He bought a substantial tranche of shares in Citicorp in 1991, when the company was in crisis. From an initial investment of $550 million ($2.98 per share after adjustments for stock splits, acquisitions and spin-offs, according to Bloomberg calculations) to bail out Citibank"s underperforming American real-estate and Latin American business-loan portfolios, his holdings in Citigroup grew to about $1 billion.

Time reported in 1997 that al-Waleed owned about five percent of News Corporation. In 2010 his News Corporation stake was about seven percent ($3 billion). Three years later News Corporation had a $175 million (19-percent) investment in al-Waleed"s Rotana Group, the Arab world"s largest entertainment company. A review of his holdings implied that al-Waleed had sold his investment in AOL.

His stake in Citibank accounted for approximately half his wealth before the financial crisis of 2007–08. At the end of 1990 al-Waleed bought 4.9 percent of Citicorp’s common stock for $207 million ($12.46 per share), the maximum before he would be legally obliged to declare his investment. In February 1991 he spent $590 million on new preferred shares, convertible to common shares at $16 each. This, an additional 10 percent of Citicorp, brought al-Waleed"s stake to 14.9 percen