Prince Alwaleed is richest Saudi, says Arabian Business

RIYADH: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Citigroup Inc's largest individual investor, was ranked the richest Saudi national by Arabian Business, even after losing 4.6 per cent of his personal wealth in the past year.

Alwaleed's assets are valued at US$16.3 billion (US$1 = RM3.53), compared with US$17.1 billion last year, the Dubai-based magazine said yesterday in its 2009 Saudi Rich List, citing the accounts of Kingdom Holding Co, the prince's investment company.

The global credit crisis, lower oil prices and a decline in demand for crude have hurt investment and energy companies operating in Saudi Arabia. Kingdom Holding's second-quarter profit slumped 83 per cent as returns on Alwaleed's investments in stock markets and hotels fell.

"Today, some of his more ambitious investments are showing the strain of the global economic slowdown," Arabian Business said. "The depreciation in value of his 5 per cent stake in Citigroup, for example, has been well-documented."

Citigroup lost 73 per cent of its value in the past 12 months as investment losses eroded its capital.

Alwaleed, nephew of the late King Fahd bin Abdulaziz al- Saud, stands out among more than 2,000 Saudi princes because he has made money. After earning a bachelor's degree from Menlo College near San Francisco, he returned to the Persian Gulf and parlayed an inheritance of less than US$1 million into a billion- dollar fortune in the 1980s, mostly through real-estate investments, according to Riz Khan's biography "Alwaleed: Businessman, Billionaire, Prince"(William Morrow, 2005).

The prince, 54, built his fortune by investing in brand-name companies he considered undervalued, including Apple Inc, News Corp and Time Warner Inc. Forbes magazine estimated he was worth US$13.3 billion in March, ranking him 22nd among the world's billionaires.

This year, Alwaleed's investments haven't kept pace with the Saudi benchmark. Shares of Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding have declined 4.3 per cent. - Bloomberg