World's Richest Family With $300 Billion: Mideast Newsletter
Wall Street titans are eager to pay their respects to Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The Abu Dhabi royal, who’s also the top spymaster for the United Arab Emirates, is effectively in charge of large swathes of a family fortune that’s bigger than any other in the world.
Their net worth now amounts to at least $300 billion, according to an analysis of their complex holdings by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index that included regulatory filings, real estate records and corporate disclosures. That’s more than the $225 billion attributed to the Waltons, who have long been recognized as the world’s richest family thanks to Walmart’s retail dominance.
Pinning down the precise magnitude of royal wealth is difficult because lines separating family and state are often blurred. In the case of the Al Nahyans — who have ruled the UAE since independence half a century ago — some assets are distinctly private, while others are intertwined with the government.
Among the family’s personal holdings is an investment firm which has seen its value surge almost 28,000% over the past five years. International Holding Co. is deemed too royal to fail by domestic investors familiar with the company, but too opaque for some international institutions to bet on.
Sheikh Tahnoon — a black belt in jiu-jitsu — operates on both public and private sides. He’s head of the Abu Dhabi wealth fund ADQ as well as the country’s top lender First Abu Dhabi Bank. ADQ and real estate developer Aldar Properties, has tapped Rothschild and Standard Chartered as advisers on a takeover bid for Dubai-based GEMS Education, one of the world’s largest private school operators, people familiar with the matter said.
As the Al Nahyans’ wealth grows, so does their influence in the region and around the world. The Gulf state helped facilitate a prisoner swap between Russia and the US, with the US releasing a notorious Russian arms dealer in exchange for Russia’s release of basketball star Brittney Griner.
Meantime, an investment in fast food has made Mohamed Alabbar
one of the UAE’s richest private residents with a fortune of $1.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Alabbar is set to net $900 million from the initial share sale of Americana Restaurants, the Middle East operator of KFC and Pizza Hut, and his remaining stake is now valued at $1.98 billion, based on the offer price.
The calculation of his wealth accounts for prior transactions including his initial purchase of Americana. There’s a chance that Alabbar, the founder of a Dubai real estate firm that built the world’s tallest skyscraper, was a billionaire before but through assets that are opaque and hard to value.
Investors are betting on a deeper slide in the Egyptian pound as the North African nation awaits final approval for a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Derivatives traders have stepped up wagers that Egypt will let its currency weaken by as much as 20% over the next 12 months.