How rich was Mohamed Al-Fayed? (From Forbes Middle East) [5 Articles]
~ Sunday, September 3, 2023 Blog Post ~
I’m very fond of reading the world’s rich lists such as the Forbes World’s Billionaires List, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and The Sunday Times Rich List. When it comes to money and wealth management, I learn considerably from the world’s wealthiest.
Furthermore, I’m curious about the world’s most affluent Arabs and the billionaire families from the Middle East. Apparently, billionaire one-percenters are not just concentrated in the United States and China.
One of the interesting Arab billionaires is Mohamed Al-Fayed. He just passed away this week at 94 years old. Mr. Al-Fayed was a businessman from Egypt. Starting in the mid-1960s, his residence and primary business interests were in the United Kingdom.
From these details, I have understood that many rich Arabs consider the United Kingdom a seat for their enterprises. Mr. Al-Fayed’s business interests consisted of his ownership of the Harrods department store and Fulham Football Club which are both based in London.
The late Arab tycoon also owned Hôtel Ritz Paris. At the time of Mr. Al-Fayed’s death this year, his wealth was estimated at US$2 billion. This fortune makes this Egyptian magnate the world’s 1,493rd richest person.
I gathered more information from Forbes Middle East regarding Mr. Al-Fayed’s affluence. Based on the financial and business news portal, the late Egyptian billionaire is included in the World’s Richest Arabs 2022 list. Here are other pertinent details about Mr. Al-Fayed’s fortune:
Mohamed Al-Fayed
Middle East Rank: 11
Global Rank #: 1,445
Net Worth 2022: US$2.1 billion
Change: +$300 million
Age (2022): 93 years old
Country: Egypt
Sector: Retail, investments
Mohamed Al-Fayed was born in Alexandria, Egypt and moved in the mid-1960s to the U.K., where he made his fortune. He’s best known for being the one-time owner of London department store Harrod’s, which he sold to Qatar for a reported $2.4 billion in 2010. He owns the storied Ritz Paris hotel. After a four-year renovation, it reopened in 2016. Suites are named after illustrious guests, like Coco Chanel. In 2013, Al Fayed sold Fulham Football Club to U.S. auto parts billionaire Shahid Khan for a reported $300 million.
Sources and references:
https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Al-Fayed
https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/
https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/billionaires/arab-billionaires
https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/lists/meet-2022s-arab-billionaires/mohamed-al-fayed/
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/sunday-times-rich-list
Article #2: Mohamed Al Fayed: Egyptian tycoon who craved ‘establishment’ approval (From The Times of Israel)
By Agence France-Presse, September 2, 2023
Businessman, whose son was killed in the Princess Diana crash, often clashed with the UK elite and royal family
Few things were beyond the reach of billionaire Egyptian tycoon Mohamed Al Fayed, who died on Friday at the age of 94.
Hotels, yachts and a soccer club were bought with ease but he never acquired the recognition he craved.
His son Dodi’s fateful relationship with princess Diana might have been the moment Fayed finally gained acceptance by the British “Establishment” elite.
Instead it marked his permanent estrangement after he insisted — without evidence — that Queen Elizabeth II’s husband Prince Philip had ordered the Paris car crash in which Diana and Dodi were killed to prevent her from marrying a Muslim.
Al Fayed lived most of his life in Britain, where for decades he was never far from the headlines.
But to his frustration, he was never granted UK citizenship nor admitted into the upper echelons of British society.
Al Fayed will be remembered most for his outspoken and often foul-mouthed manner, his revenge on the Conservative party, his controversial purchase of the Harrods department store, and his ownership of the Fulham soccer club and the Ritz hotel in Paris.
With a business empire encompassing shipping, property, banking, oil, retail and construction, Fayed was also a philanthropist, whose foundation helped children in the UK, Thailand and Mongolia.
His gift for self-invention — he added the “Al-” prefix to his surname and a 1988 UK government report described his claims of wealthy ancestry as “completely bogus” — led segments of the British press to dub him the “Phoney Pharoah.”
Humble origins
Far from being the scion of a dynasty of cotton and shipping barons he made himself out to be, Al Fayed was the son of a poor Alexandrian schoolteacher who, after an early venture peddling lemonade, set out in business selling sewing machines.
He later had the good luck to start working for the arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who recognized his business abilities and employed him in his furniture export business in Saudi Arabia.
He became an adviser to the Sultan of Brunei in the mid-1960s and moved to Britain in the 1970s.
Al Fayed bought the Ritz in 1979 with his brother and the pair snapped up Harrods six years later after a long and bitter takeover battle with British businessman Roland “Tiny” Rowland.
A subsequent government investigation into the takeover, officially published in 1990, found that Al Fayed and his brother had been dishonest about their wealth and origins to secure the takeover.
They called the claims unfair. Five years later, his first application for British citizenship was rejected.
Revenge followed swiftly. Soon after, Al Fayed told the press that he had paid Conservative MPs to ask questions in parliament on his behalf.
This brought down two prominent politicians, while Al Fayed also exposed Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken’s involvement in a Saudi arms deal.
Aitken was later jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
Paris tragedy
The defining tragedy of Fayed’s life came in August 1997: Dodi and Princess Diana died when a car driven by one of Fayed’s employees, chauffeur Henri Paul, crashed in a Paris road tunnel.
For years afterward, Fayed refused to accept the deaths were the result of speeding and intoxication by Paul, who also died.
The distraught Fayed accused the royal family of being behind the deaths and commissioned two memorials to the couple at Harrods.
One, unveiled in 1998, was a kitsch pyramid-shaped display with photos of Diana and Dodi, a wine glass purported to be from their final dinner and a ring that he claimed his son bought for the princess.
The other, a copper statue of the couple releasing an albatross, was entitled “Innocent Victims” –- a reflection of his view that Dodi and Diana “were murdered.”
Al Fayed’s claims against the royal family came at a price.
Harrods lost a royal warrant bestowed by Prince Philip in 2000 after what Buckingham Palace called “a significant decline in the trading relationship” between the prince and the store.
Later that year, Al Fayed ordered the removal of all remaining royal warrants — effectively a regal seal of approval — for supplying the queen, queen mother and Prince Charles, now King Charles III.
The Establishment “dislike my outspokenness and determination to get the truth,” he said, as he announced his exile to Switzerland in 2003 because of his claims and what he said was the “unfair” treatment at the hands of the tax authorities.
Sporting success
Al Fayed sold Harrods in 2010 to the investment arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund for a reported £1.5 billion ($2.2 billion), although it was once reported he wanted to remain there even in death.
He told the Financial Times in 2002 that he wanted his body to be put on display in a glass mausoleum on Harrods’ roof “so people can come and visit me.”
Despite his paranoia, secrecy and eccentricities, Fayed’s success with the prestige department store was undeniable.
Within a decade of his taking over, sales increased by 50 percent and profits rose from £16 million to £62 million.
Other successes included at Fulham, which he transformed from a struggling outfit into a top-flight team. But even there he was ridiculed and he eventually sold it off.
He claimed in 2014 the team was relegated from its league because a giant statue he had commissioned of Michael Jackson outside the ground was removed.
Critics, he said characteristically, “can go to hell.”
According to the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires, Fayed was worth $1.9 billion in November 2022.
Source:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/mohamed-al-fayed-egyptian-tycoon-who-craved-establishment-approval/
Article #3: Forbes Profile: Mohamed Al Fayed (From Forbes)
Deceased
2023 Billionaires Net Worth (as of 4/4/23): $2 Billion
About Mohamed Al Fayed
- Mohamed Al Fayed, best known for being the one-time owner of London department store Harrod’s, died at 94 on August 30, 2023.
- Al Fayed was born in Alexandria, Egypt and moved in the mid-1960s to the U.K., where he made his fortune.
- He owned the storied Ritz Paris hotel. After a four-year renovation, it reopened in 2016. Suites are named after illustrious guests, like Coco Chanel.
- In 2010, Al Fayed sold Harrod’s to Qatar for a reported $2.4 billion.
- In 2013, he sold Fulham Football Club to U.S. auto parts billionaire Shahid Khan for a reported $300 million.
Source:
https://www.forbes.com/profile/mohamed-al-fayed/
Article #4: The Crown: How Rich Was Mohamed Al-Fayed? (From Screenrant.com)
By John Orquiola, November 15, 2022
Warning: SPOILERS for The Crown Season 5
Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Daw) was introduced in The Crown season 5, episode 3, and here’s how rich the Egyptian billionaire is in real life. Mohamed, or “Mou Mou” as his friends call him, is the father of Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), who is destined to become Princess Diana’s (Elizabeth Debicki) lover and to die in a Paris car crash with the Princess of Wales on August 31, 1997. The Crown season 5 devoted an entire episode to Mohamed Al-Fayed, a rare occurrence for a non-member of the royal family that signifies Mou Mou’s importance.
The real-life Mohamed Al-Fayed is a billionaire whose net worth in 2022 is $1.9-billion, according to Forbes. By comparison, Forbes listed the net worth of Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) in 2022 at $426 million. As The Crown season 5 depicts, Mohamed purchased The Ritz Hotel for $30 million n 1979.. His money also financed the Academy Award-winning film for Best Picture, Chariots of Fire, which Dodi produced. In 1984 and 1985, Al-Fayed and his younger brothers purchased House of Fraser, which gave them ownership of the famed London department store Harrods. In 1997, Mohamed bought the Fulham Football Club, which he sold in 2013 for a reported $300 million. Al-Fayed also restored Villa Windsor, the former home of the Duke of Windsor (Alex Jennings), spending $12 million on renovations.
How Mohamed Al-Fayed Earned His Money
Not much is known about Mohamed Al-Fayed’s early business ventures before he moved to the UK in the 1970s. He married Samira Khashoggi, sister of the arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, in 1954, and she is the mother of Dodi. The couple divorced in 1966. Mohamed worked in the Saudi Arabian import business, launched a shipping business, and Mou Mou became a consultant for the Sultan of Brunei in 1966. Mohamed’s finances and business dealings are shady in the 1960s and 1970s, as The Crown noted when the Al-Fayeds purchased the Ritz Hotel in 1979.
Mohamed Al-Fayed was depicted by The Crown as perpetually seeking status and the approval of upper-class British society, especially the royal family. Al-Fayed’s purchase of Harrods and his employment of Sydney Johnson (Jude Akuwidike), the Duke of Windsor’s former valet, as his servant, were meant to ingratiate him into the echelons of British society. But Mohamed was denied access to the Queen he craved, and Princess Diana was the next best thing. Mou Mou ensured that Dodi would spend time with the lonely and vulnerable Diana in St. Tropez, and they indeed became a couple in the summer of 1997.
What Happened To Mohamed Al-Fayed?
After Princess Diana and Dodi’s death, Mohamed Al-Fayed publicly claimed that the car crash wasn’t an accident, but a murder engineered by the royal family. Mohamed also claimed in 2001 that Diana was pregnant by Dodi, and fostered a conspiracy theory that MI6 engineered the crash on the orders of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh (Jonathan Pryce). Al-Fayed told 60 Minutes Australia that he believed the House of Windsor ordered Diana and Dodi’s death “because they still don’t accept that Dodi, my son, an Egyptian, a Muslim, can be the stepfather of the future king,” Mohamed financially backed Unlawful Killing, a 2011 documentary of his version of Diana and Dodi’s death, but was not released due to potential libel suits.
Mohamed Al-Fayed sold Harrods in 2010 for £1.5billion. He is currently retired to “spend more time with his children and grandchildren,” and he is still married to Heini Wathén, a former model who is now 67 years old. Mohamed Al-Fayed still lives in the UK, and he will still factor into The Crown season 6, which is expected to dramatically depict the events of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed’s death.
Source:
https://screenrant.com/how-rich-was-mohamed-al-fayed-crown/
Article #5: Mohamed Al Fayed, Tycoon Who Clashed With Royals, Dies at 94 (From Bloomberg)
By Devon Pendleton, September 2, 2023
- Victory in Harrods takeover battle cemented his fortune
- His son, Dodi, died alongside Princess Diana in 1997 car crash
(Bloomberg) — Mohamed Al Fayed, the Egyptian businessman who began his career selling drinks on the streets of Alexandria and amassed a fortune that included some of Britain’s most storied assets, has died. He was 94.
His family said in a statement that Al Fayed died on Aug. 30 following “a long and fulfilled retirement surrounded by his loved ones.” The statement, reported by the Associated Press, was released by Fulham Football Club in London, which was once owned by Al Fayed.
Al Fayed stormed the British establishment and its institutions after arriving in the country in the 1970s with ample funds and a hunger for respectability, repeatedly overcoming questions about the source of his fortune to acquire stakes in prized assets including Harrods, Fulham Football Club and the Ritz hotel in Paris.
He became known for bitter clashes with Britain’s royal family following the death of Princess Diana in a car crash in Paris in 1997. Al Fayed’s beloved son, Dodi, whom Diana was dating, and the driver also perished.
It was an abrupt reversal for Al Fayed, a onetime royalist of sorts who craved the respect of the British aristocracy. He accused the royal family of wanting to “get rid” of Diana and maintained for years a conspiracy that the crash was instigated by the Duke of Edinburgh and other royals to murder her. His claims were dismissed after an 11-year inquest concluded with a 2008 jury ruling that the accident was caused by grossly negligent driving.
The tycoon’s career was defined by flashy purchases and frequent spats with old-guard institutions in both London and Paris. His deal-making ruffled feathers in business circles that were long dominated by a clubby elite from an entrenched upper class. Al Fayed made no secret of his resentment over his outsider status.
“I live in a country where I feel sorry for the ordinary people,” he told CNN in a 2004 interview. “Their destiny and their human rights are kidnapped by gangsters and people who call themselves the establishment, who are still racist to the core.”
Harrods Battle
Al Fayed’s dealings in the UK were characterized by mutual suspicion due in part to the hazy origins of his fortune.
He began investing in UK companies in the 1960s after relocating a shipping company he’d founded with his brother from Egypt to Europe. He served as a financial adviser to the Sultan of Brunei and once attempted to cut oil deals with Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Papa Doc” Duvalier. He was married for a time to Samira Khashoggi, the sister of Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, for whom he once worked negotiating contracts.
With his two brothers, Al Fayed fended off rival investor Roland Walter “Tiny” Rowland in 1985 to land the winning bid for iconic London department store Harrods for £615 million ($669 million at the time). Rowland later complained that the Al Fayeds had misrepresented their wealth and background to secure the deal, achieved through a takeover of Harrods’ parent company, House of Fraser.
The accusations were later found to be true by a parliamentary inquiry that determined, among other things, that Al Fayed and his brothers had furnished fake birth certificates and lied about their family history, education and net worth to inspectors from the government’s trade department who were doing reconnaissance ahead of the Harrods acquisition. By then, Al Fayed’s check had long cleared and his control of Harrods was cemented. It was his most valuable asset by far, and the one that would go on to make him a billionaire.
He invested in restaurants at the luxury emporium, opened other Harrods-brand stores including at London’s Heathrow airport and created an Egyptian room in which two statues of himself were displayed alongside memorials to Dodi and Diana. He also introduced a dress code, leading the store to turn shoppers away for wearing shorts, flip flops or scruffy clothing.
He sold Harrods to a Qatari sovereign wealth fund in 2010 for £1.5 billion.
As owner of Fulham FC from 1997 to 2013, he was credited with turning around the Premier League football club’s fortunes. He also owned tens of thousands of acres of land in the Scottish highlands.
Global Hustle
Mohamed Fayed — he started using the “Al” prefix after his move to England — was born on Jan. 27, 1929. The parliamentary inquiry into his past concluded that Al Fayed “came from respectable but humble origins” as one of five children of a school teacher in Alexandria named Aly Aly Fayed.
Ambitious from a young age, Al Fayed frequently skipped school to do odd jobs, selling soft drinks in the streets or sewing machines door-to-door. An introduction to the arms dealer Khashoggi elevated his hustle to a global scale and instilled in him the importance of projecting an image of wealth through things like private jets and tailored suits.
Al Fayed’s efforts to climb Britain’s social ladder, largely through his association with the royal family, was a story line in the fifth season of the Netflix series The Crown. Actor Salim Dau portrayed Al Fayed.
Owning Harrods brought Al Fayed both national celebrity and increased public scrutiny. Dozens of women who worked for him reported being sexually harassed by the billionaire and claimed they were retaliated against if they rebuffed him. Al Fayed denied the accusations, including one allegation of rape, and prosecutors never pressed charges.
Al Fayed’s love-hate relationship with the establishment carried through to Parliament, where he courted a number of politicians — relationships that proved career-ending for some MPs after Al Fayed disclosed the names of those he’d paid to ask questions in the assembly on his behalf. He battled repeatedly with the tax authorities and, despite his voiced distaste for the UK government, applied twice for British citizenship. Both times he was rejected.
Al Fayed had his only child, Dodi, from his two-year marriage to Samira Khashoggi during the 1950s. He married Finnish former model Heini Wathen in 1985 and they had four children: Jasmine, Karim, Camilla and Omar.
— With assistance from Katie Linsell.
(Adds AP report that he died on Aug. 30 in second paragraph.)
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
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