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A Look Inside the $500M 'Flying Palace' Sold by Saudi Prince

In early 2007, reports began circulating that some extremely rich person had commissioned a private variant of Airbus' then-newly introduced A380 airliner, at a starting cost of $300M. The double-decker jumbo jet—still the world's largest passenger jet—can accomodate 853 passengers in commercial guise, but the buyer, who was later revealed as Saudi Arabian royal Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, was said to have spent an additional $100M to $150M to outfit the plane to his high standards and transport no more than 100 people. But now the prince has apparently sold the plane before it ever took flight, to an unnamed billionaire desperate to skip the waiting list for the world's largest private jet.

? Prince Al-Waleed tapped interior designer Edése Doret—a private jet and megayacht specialist—to transform the interiors into an airborne palace. That process started simply, at least by these standards. Doret designed a 14-seat dining table for the Prince and his guests, complete with cushy chromed chairs and a glass chandelier, all rendered in soothing neutral tones.

? Adjacent to the dining area, a lounge area boasting three sofas, a pair of chairs, a shiny coffee table, and four rather hideous light fixtures. As if guests weren't impressed enough already by a half-billion dollar private jet, there's an illuminated nook in the divider to hold a scale model of the owner's absurdly large motor yacht. A huge flatscreen television, mounted on the wall opposite the ship model, provides more pedestrian entertainment.

? If the upgrades mentioned so far seem banal by private jet standards—and/or hardly worth $150M—this is where things get crazy. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the record-breaking jet will have the world's first elevator in the sky, providing access to the plane's three levels in flight, as well as extending all the way down to the tarmac when parked, for easy VIP egress.

? Doret had been planning to include a whirlpool tub in the design—one with "a rapid drainage system that can empty the standing water in seconds to a tank in the cargo hold"—but Airbus refused to include a swimming pool on board. What is reportedly making the cut is a special "magic carpet" room on the lowest level, which is outfitted with a transparent floor, providing astounding views of the countryside from cruising altitude.

· One 'World's Biggest Jet,' Please [WSJ] · Prince Alwaleed sells A380 flying palace [Arabian Business] · Flying Palace [Sydney Morning Herald] · Aviation [Edese Doret] · Airbus Says No to Prince's Swimming Pool at 35,000 Feet [The Life of Luxury]

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Alwaleed bin Talal is the Saudi Prince Who Helped Musk Acquire Twitter; Here's His Net Worth

Belonging to the House of Saud, whose wealth is 16 times more than that of the British royal family, Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud has an estimated net worth of nearly $20 billion . His royal lineage is renowned for its penchant for luxury brands and opulent hotels, and Talal himself has invested in the hospitality business. He had bought the Plaza Hotel in New York in 2018, and most recently helped Elon Musk take over Twitter by offering his stake in the firm, after initially opposing his acquisition. The royal who was among 11 princes once arrested by the current Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman, is also a stakeholder in Citigroup and Uber.

What are Alwaleed bin Talal's sources of income?

Talal is the founder of Kingdom Holdings, through which he has invested in private and public firms across the US, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Apart from startups such as Snap and Lyft, his portfolio also boasts of iconic hotels such as The Savoy in London and Hotel George V. Most of Talal's revenue comes from these investments, and he also owns a majority stake in Arabic entertainment platform Rotana.

He has also invested in real estate across Saudi Arabia, and has promised $50 million to Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Coalition.

Real estate and other assets

Apart from major luxury hotels on the global map, Talal also owns a 420-room palace in Riyadh, three floors in Kingdom Tower, and houses in Saudi Arabia collectively worth $4 billion. Talal has also made other extravagant purchases, including Donald Trump's yacht back in 1991, and a Mercedes Benz which was studded with diamonds after the purchase. He even bought an entire Airbus380, which was later turned into his very own palace in the sky.

Personal life 

Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, born on March 7, 1955, Al Waleed bin Talal has family ties as the grandson of Abdulaziz, the first king of Saudi Arabia, and Riad Al Solh, who served as Lebanon's first prime minister. Throughout his life, Al Waleed has entered into several marriages. His first marriage, at the age of 19 in 1976, was to his cousin, Princess Dalal bint Saud, a daughter of King Saud. They had two children, Prince Khaled (born on April 21, 1978) and Princess Reem (born on June 20, 1982), but eventually divorced in December 1994.

In 1996, Al Waleed married Princess Iman Sudairi, but this marriage lasted for only about a year. Following his second divorce, he entered into a marriage with Kholood Al Anazi in 1999, but they too divorced in 2004.

His fourth marriage was to Ameera al-Taweel, which lasted for about six years before they officially divorced in 2014. Al Waleed publicly announced this separation, expressing his continued respect for Princess Ameera Al-Taweel.

How many times has Al Waleed married?

Al Waleed has married 4 times.

Who is the wealthiest Saudi prince?

Alwaleed bin Talal is a billionaire and a Saudi Arabian royal family member. He is the founder of the Kingdom Holding Company

How did Alwaleed bin Talal get his fortune?

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud is the founder of Kingdom Holding, a conglomerate that has stakes in hotels, real estate, and equities.

Worth 8 times more than King Charles, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is a self-made billionaire who leads a life so luxurious that no royal can even dream of. He travels in his personal Boeing 747, unwinds on his $325 million megayacht, and owns three lavish palaces.

Note – As of writing this article according to Forbes Prince Al Waleed is worth $18.7 billion. According to the Guardian, King Charles is worth $2.3 billion.

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Al Waleed bin Talal: Rise to power and fall from grace

Born in 1955 Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud is one of the most notorious members of the House of Saud, the nephew of King Salman and the grandson of Ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Saudi state. He rose in power and wealth to become the 7th richest man in the world at one point, having a net worth in excess of $50 Billion USD in 2017, only to become embroiled in a corruption scandal that saw his fortune, and reputation, plummet.

Prince Al Waleed bin Talal’s Early Days

Prince Al Waleed bin Talal had a turbulent childhood witnessing the separation of his parents at a young age, before attending military school in Riyadh, where he was subjected to the rigours of “extreme discipline”. Prince Al Waleed then went on to study in the United States, where he enjoyed the relative freedom of American life, and is said to have “had a riot of time”, graduated in 1979 from Menlo college in California with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.

Shortly after graduation from college Prince Al Waleed started a career as a businessman and entrepreneur, returning to Saudia Arabia he became a prominent player in construction and real estate, shrewdly utilising his connections and powerful position in the royal family to build a burgeoning business empire.

Prince Al Waleed bin Talal’s Business Ventures and Investments

Prince Al Waleed was considered to Arabia what Warren Buffett is to North America, his business acumen and entrepreneurial flair were put to use upon his return to Saudi Arabia in 1979, the main difference of course being that he had a vast family fortune to draw upon.

He returned to Saudi Arabia during the oil boom of 1974 – 1985, and thanks to his exceptional business clear-sightedness, he set up a small office in Riyadh and began using his royal status and connections to gain construction contracts and real estate deals.

Prince Al Waleed’s business strategy was shrewd, he acquired the under-performing Saudi Commercial Bank and turned it into one of the leading Middle Eastern banks by forging mergers with Saudi Cairo Bank and SAMBA.

Prince Al Waleed’s investment ventures came to the attention of the West when he purchased a substantial share in Citicorp/Citibank. His Citibank stake amounted to half his wealth before the downside financial crisis period of 2007-2008. In the financial period ending of 1990, he purchased 4.9 per cent Citicorp’s existing common shares for $207 million. He spent “$590 million buying new preferred shares, convertible into common shares at $16 each.”

In 1997, he invested in News Corp acquiring a five percent ownership stake. This investment paid off to equivalent of $3 billion with a 2% increase. News Corp in turn invested $ 175 million to revamp Prince Alwaleed’s Rotana Group, the Arab World’s largest entertainment company.

Al Waleed’s real estate investment was also a key part of his ascension, and just as critical as his other ventures. He holds large stake in the Four Seasons hotel chain and the Plaza Hotel in New York. He also invested in London’s Savoy Hotel and Monaco’s Monte Carlo Grand Hotel, both which paid serious dividends. In addition he holds 10 percent stake in Euro Disney SCA, the company which runs Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallée.

In partnership with the U.S. real estate firm Colony Capital, Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding acquired Toronto-based Fairmont Hotels and Resorts estimated at $3.9 billion. He invested $300 million in Twitter through the purchase of secondary shares from insiders in December 2011.

Court cases and Forbes Magazine

In 2013 Al Waleed bin Talal sued Forbes Magazine, claiming the magazine accused him of manipulating his company’s share price to inflate his net worth and raise his ranking on the Forbes list. The Prince’s libel case against Forbes was rejected by the courts.

Kerry Dolan of Forbes details the Prince’s frequent lobbying of the magazine in her article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2013/03/05/prince-alwaleed-and-the-curious-case-of-kingdom-holding-stock/

The prince also lost a high profile case filed against him in London, involving the sale of his Airbus 340 to the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Businesswoman Daad Sharad sued the Prince after he reneged on their agreement to pay $10 million commission for the selling his plane. The case lasted for several years, as the Prince questioned the jurisdiction of the London courts in the case, however he ultimately lost and was forced to appear and spent two days on the witness stand. Finally Justice Peter Smith ruled against Prince Alwaleed, finding the evidence he provided “unreliable” and “untruthful”.

Prince Al Waleed’s rivalry with Donald Trump

During Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign, both he and Prince Al Waleed bin Talal have found themselves at loggerheads, most often on Twitter, the platform partly owned by the Prince. The spat started when Trump tweeted a photo-shopped image of the Prince, referring to the Prince’s part ownership of Fox.

The Prince responded with mention to his bailouts of Trump, back in the 1990s Prince Al Waleed bailed Trump out of financial difficulties on at least two known occasions.

Prince Al Waleed is one of President Donald Trump’s least favourite Middle East figures, Trump even tweeted his support of the Mohammed bin Salman’s arrest of several princes including Alwaleed.

Trump tweeted: “I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing….” He then added: “….Some of those they are harshly treating have been ‘milking’ their country for years!”

Mr. Trump and the Saudi Prince’s feud, which began during the last presidential campaign, carries an irony as there are a lot of parallels between the two divisive figures. Both are flamboyant real estate investors from wealthy families, both have multiple marriages (four for the prince, three for the president) who obsess over their financial status and have strained relations with other establishment elites and media.

Prince Al Waleed bin Talal’s Assets at a Glance

Al Waleed bin Talal’s assets include a “95 percent stake in Kingdom Holding Company; 91 percent ownership of Rotana Video & Audio Visual Company; a 90 percent ownership of LBC SAT; 7 percent ownership of News Corporation; about a 6 percent ownership of Citigroup; and a 17 percent ownership of Al Nahar and a 25 percent ownership of Al Diyar, two daily newspapers published in Lebanon.”

Prince Al Waleed owns the 54th largest private yacht in the world, measuring 85.9-meters (282 ft). He has three palaces, ranging from 250,000 to 4,000,000 sq. meters. Two of these palaces, Kingdom Resort and Kingdom Palace are in the city of Hay al Huda. Kingdom Oasis his third and largest palace in Janadriyah is still under construction.

Prince Al Waleed bin Talal’s Philanthropy Undertakings

Prince Al Waleed bridges gaps between Western and Islamic nations through charitable activities in support of education initiatives. He has funded American studies in the Middle East universities and Islamic studies in Western universities.

He donated £18.5 million to the families of Palestinians following Israeli operations in the West Bank city of Jenin. In 2002, he gave a one-time generous gift of $500,000 to help fund the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. In 2004 he contributed $17 million to victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. In 2008, he gave £16 million to Edinburgh University to fund the “centre for the study of Islam in the contemporary world.

Al Waleed bin Talal corruption and eventual arrest

On 4 November 2017, Prince Al Waleed was arrested in Saudi Arabia in a corruption crackdown conducted by a new royal anti-corruption committee. This was done on authority of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, after a lengthy investigation and surveillance of Al Waleed’s activities.

Just days before his arrest, Al Waleed contacted the now murdered US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and invited him to return to Saudi Arabia.

The arrest was swift, with security forces taking Al Waleed into custody and confiscating a number of phones and laptops. Al Waleed was held in detention at the now infamous Ritz Carlton, where he was interrogated. Prince Al Waleed eventually admitted to a number of wrong doings, and negotiated a price for his release. Prince Al Waleed was fined $6 Billion USD, which was payed to MBS, and then released from detention in late January 2018, nearly three months after his arrest. A number of other Saudi notables were also arrested in the crackdown in 2017 and also made similar financial settlements with the ruling faction of the House of Saud.

Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Net Worth

Prince Al Waleed bin Talal’s net worth is now estimated at $2 Billion USD, down from a lofty $50 Billion several years ago. The Prince still own’s a stake in the now Elon Musk controlled Twitter, as well as numerous other investments through his holding company. The Prince’s financial downfall was mainly caused by a number of investment mis-steps, as well as his corruption scandal which saw him hand over most of his liquid net worth at the time.

Al Waleed bin Talal Awards and Accomplishment

Prince Al Waleed has received many awards and accolades throughout his industrious career, here are a selection: 2002 Awarded Order of Abdulaziz Al Saud, National Order of Cedar. 2009 Received The Order of Izzudin and the Star of Palestine. 2010 Awarded the Dwight D. Eisenhower Award for Innovation. 2012 Awarded the Nepalese Honorary Medal of the Third Order “Mahaujjval Rastradip Manpadvi and Guinea-Bissau’s Colina De Boe Medal

Prince Alwaleed interview with CNBC

Prince Alwaleed interview with Bloomberg

Prince Alwaleed’s work in the international community

Prince Alwaleed meeting the Korean President after KHC signed MOU

Visit Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Al Saud’s personal Website >>

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• Brands and Markets

Shipbuilding in Germany

German specialist suppliers are among the world leaders in shipbuilding.

Shipbuilding in Germany stands in the shadow of other leading industries such as the automotive industry. But some shipbuilders, largely unknown outside their field, are among the world leaders. Three examples.

The Meyer Shipyard in Papenburg, owned for seven generations by the same family, has earned a reputation in recent decades as a manufacturer of large and modern cruise ships. So far it has delivered 38 luxury liners. The latest example is the “Quantum of the Seas”, delivered to the shipping company Royal Caribbean Cruises in October 2014. In August 2014, the Meyer Shipyard took over the Finnish cruise liner building yard STX in Turku in order to increase its capacities. There, between 2009 and 2010, it built the two largest cruiser ships in the world, the “Oasis of the Seas“ and the “Allure of the Seas” – also for Royal Caribbean Cruises.

www.meyerwerft.de

The Lürssen Shipyard in Bremen, family-owned since 1875, has successfully specialised in the construction of luxury mega-yachts. Information about the boats and the names of customers is not published. Unless, that is, the customer wishes it to be. One such customer is Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, for whom Lürssen built the longest private yacht (180 metres) in the world in 2013. Naturally, no prices are mentioned. But an industry rule is that one million euro per ship metre is the base price; extras cost extra.

www.luerssen-yachts.com

The Fassmer Shipyard in Berne, near Oldenburg, is one of the world’s leading suppliers of high quality lifeboats, as used on cruise ships. The family business focuses on innovation and flexibility. Early on it used new materials such as glass fibre reinforced polyester resin. The range of products extends from small rescue boats and freefall boats to tender boats. In 2008 the company presented its XXL lifeboats for up to 300 people; they enable particularly rapid boarding and ensure a high degree of safety.

www.fassmer.de

International Boat Show, Düsseldorf, 17 to 25 January 2015

© www.deutschland.de

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