Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a shareholder in Citigroup Inc, fell six places in the Forbes magazine list of billionaires this year to 19th, though he remained the richest Arab with a $21 billion fortune.
Kuwait's Nasser al-Kharafi and Egypt's Naguib Sawiris, chairman of Orascom Telecom, held on as the second- and third-richest Arabs, with $14 billion and $12.7 billion respectively, according to US magazine's annual list released on Thursday.
Saudi Arabia's Mohammed al-Amoudi, whose businesses include oil, gas and construction, slipped to sixth place and the United Arab Emirates' Abdul Aziz al-Ghurair to seventh among the richest Arabs, according to Forbes. Ghurair is chief executive of Mashreq, the UAE's third-largest lender by market value.
Onsi Sawiris, who founded the Orascom group of businesses, which includes construction and telecommunications, rose three places to number five with $9.1 billion and his son, Nassef, to fourth from tenth with $11 billion. Nassef is chairman of Orascom Construction Industries.
Saudi Arabia's Maan al-Sanea, who last year bought a 3.1 percent stake in HSBC Holdings Plc worth 3.3 billion pounds ($6.58 billion), fell three places to ninth with $8.1 billion.
Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Issa al-Jaber, whose interests include real estate and hotels, entered the top ten richest Arabs, while Saleh al-Rajhi, co-founder of Saudi Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank, dropped out. Al Rajhi Bank is the world's largest lender by market value that complies with Islamic law, including a ban on the receipt of interest.
Alwaleed owns 3.6 percent of Citigroup through his Kingdom Holding Co and said in January he would invest more in the ailing US bank after it wrote down billions on the subprime mortgage crisis.
Comments
Comments are closed.