Helen Power of the Sunday Telegraph profiles Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia. I groan that some apparently call him the "Saudi Buffett" -- but that's probably the work of journalists trying to come up with a "hook" for their stories, and not HRH.
Much of the piece deals with the Prince floating his Kingdom Holding on the Riyadh stock exchange:
Insiders say his desire to drag the kingdom into the 21st century is the main driver for the Riyadh float, which is expected to give a big boost to the struggling local stock market. "He's really trying to take Saudi Arabia forward in the business sense. There's quite a lot of resistance and he's got his work cut out. There is a set of entrenched and conflicting interests in the kingdom," says one source.
Another interesting bit, proving just how important one good idea can be:
The Prince has many admirers. "He's clearly very smart and very driven. He's always been someone who is in a hurry and he's always recognised good opportunities," says one. But most of his fortune comes from just a single investment - his stake in Citi, bought in the early 1990s.
And as one source close to the prince says: "He could continue to earn money for the rest of his life and it wouldn't account for more than he earned from that [the Citi] investment."
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