The rich must feel insufficiently hated – the case of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal makes that conclusion hard to resist. One of the more prominent of King Ibn Saud's uncountable grandchildren (the founding monarch of Saudi Arabia had approximately 22 wives and at least 40 sons; number of daughters unknown), his shareholdings include chunks of News Corp, Apple, Citibank, and the Savoy Hotel, while his private amusements number a Boeing 747 that he uses as his private jet and a collection of 200 cars. Money, of course, can't buy you happiness, and the prince is unhappy. In its recently published list of billionaires, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at $20bn (£15bn) and placed him 26th in a list headed by the Mexican tycoon, Carlos Slim ($73bn). The estimate and the ranking made Prince Alwaleed furious. He felt insulted. He was worth so much more!
As the magazine prepared to publish the list, the prince's hirelings wrote to protest at an undervaluation that, to quote one of several letters, "strikes in the face of improving Saudi-American bilateral relations and co-operation". Forbes, it said, was "putting down the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and that is a slap in the face of modernity and progress". Many people might have seen this differently – that any sign, however small, of a Saudi prince moderating his wealth might be a blow for modernity and progress – but never mind; the substance of the princely complaint was that he was worth $9.6bn more than Forbes said. The revaluation would have ranked him 10th in the list, one down from the L'Oréal heiress, Liliane Bettencourt, but Forbes refused to budge. The list's editor, Kerry Dolan, said that Alwaleed had a habit of inflating his wealth purely to get on her list. "Of the 1,426 billionaires on our list, not one – not even the vainglorious Donald Trump – goes to greater measure to try to affect his or her ranking," she wrote. On hearing of his valuation in 2006, he had phoned her "nearly in tears". Full story...
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As the magazine prepared to publish the list, the prince's hirelings wrote to protest at an undervaluation that, to quote one of several letters, "strikes in the face of improving Saudi-American bilateral relations and co-operation". Forbes, it said, was "putting down the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and that is a slap in the face of modernity and progress". Many people might have seen this differently – that any sign, however small, of a Saudi prince moderating his wealth might be a blow for modernity and progress – but never mind; the substance of the princely complaint was that he was worth $9.6bn more than Forbes said. The revaluation would have ranked him 10th in the list, one down from the L'Oréal heiress, Liliane Bettencourt, but Forbes refused to budge. The list's editor, Kerry Dolan, said that Alwaleed had a habit of inflating his wealth purely to get on her list. "Of the 1,426 billionaires on our list, not one – not even the vainglorious Donald Trump – goes to greater measure to try to affect his or her ranking," she wrote. On hearing of his valuation in 2006, he had phoned her "nearly in tears". Full story...
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