Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal as a Financier - Essay Example

?Prince AlWaleed Bin Talal as a Financier and formulate an understanding of the character’s personal, professional and financial initiatives over their careers. Name: Course: Professor: Institution: City and State: Date: Contents Prince AlWaleed Bin Talal as a Financier and formulate an understanding of the character’s personal, professional and financial initiatives over their careers. 1 Contents 1 Prince AlWaleed Bin Talal as a Financier and formulate an understanding of the character’s personal, professional and financial initiatives over their careers. 2 His professional and financial initiatives 3 His personal initiatives 4 My understanding of his character 5 Works Cited 7 Prince AlWaleed Bin Talal as a Financier and formulate an understanding of the character’s personal, professional and financial initiatives over their careers. His professional and financial initiatives AlWaleed’s prominence in investment surfaced in 1990s when he bought substantial shares in Citicorp, when the firm was experiencing financial crisis. Al Waleed’s bailed out Citibank with an initial investment of $550 million, an investment that has grown to about $1 billion currently. In 1997, AlWaleed was reported to have owned about 5% of News Corporation - stake that had grown to about 7% in 2010 ($3 billion) (Gustin 2). In February 1991, AlWaleed bought new preferred shares amounting to about $590 million. These investments increased his stake in Citigroup from 10% to 14.9%. Afterwards, he invested in a variety of companies including Apple Inc., AOL, MCI Inc., Fox News, Motorola and many other media and technology companies. Prior to 2007-2010 financial crises, his shares in Citibank at some point accounted for about half of his assets (Gustin 3). Al Waleed is the owner of Rotana Group, the Arab world's largest entertainment corporation. This company is also owned by News Group, which holds 18.97% of its stake. Rotana Group is an expansive pan-Arab media establishment that incorporates Rotana Magazine, a film production company, Rotana Record label, Rotana TV, and seven music channels (Rotana Radio). In 2005, Al Waleed stakes in Apples were disposed. On the down side, Al Waleed has happened to invest in the airline TWA and Eastman Kodak, which have performed quite poorly. He has also invested heavily in the real estate sector, where he has stakes in the Plaza Hotel and the Four Seasons hotel in New York. In December 2011, he invested $300 Million in Twitter, which gave Kingdom holding more than 3% stake in the company (Knickmeyer 5). His personal initiatives AlWaleed has participated in significant philanthropic initiatives that have build bridges between the West and the Islamic world. He strongly believes that promoting harmonious global co-existence is an imperative role of global philanthropy. In his early life, he capitalized on his advantaged upbringing to share his resources with the less-advantaged in the society. When he was growing up and started accumulated wealth, he upheld his believe in giving and sharing his wealth as an obligation to his God. Up to date, he strongly believes in the principle of giving and sharing of wealth with the less privileged. He also made efforts to dismiss the view that Saudi Arabia was not affected by poverty and reached out to poor remote desert hamlets had urban neighborhoods. As a global philanthropist and investor, AlWaleed has upheld long-term relationships with former heads of states, NGOs, academics, religious and business leaders, and political leaders from around the world. AlWaleed is also a staunch religious believer, hard-working, and gifted in multitasking. In this regards, he holds libel political and religious perceptions, and he subscribes to a Global vision of mutual respect and tolerance amongst different states, communities and faiths (Peel 5). There are a total of three philanthropic Foundations established by Alwaleed – all committed to supporting humanitarian projects in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the world. These programs are generally categorized into four areas including Women’s Empowerment, Disaster Recovery, Community Development and Global Cultural Understanding. In addition to these categories, there are a number of Special Projects that are supported by the Foundations, which are based on specific needs of communities. These foundations are inspired by the guiding principle of “Commitment without Boundaries”. They firmly espouse global best practices in grant allocation and grant application processes (Peel 5). My understanding of his character The life of Prince AlWaleed Bin Talal as a top investor has been full of ups and downs, but he has surmounted most of the challenges he has come along due to his unique character that is typical of many successful entrepreneurs of all times. Most importantly, AlWaleed is full of passion in everything he initiates, be it for profit making or purely philanthropic. Everything he does, he seems to love it. In stock exchange, sometimes the markets tend to performed poorly, but AlWaleed’s love for what he does has overpowered seasonal volatilities and that is why he has never given up even if his stake in a certain venture performed poorly. His philanthropic Foundations are also a testimony of his passion for helping the less privileged in the society. It is through his passion that he has managed to generously support so many people across the world. It is also natural to associate AlWaleed Bin Talal with patience. Most of his investments that have grown to billions of Dollars to date are long-term investments that no individual can excel without exercising high level of patience. His business empire started growing immensely from the early 1900s and it has now taken him about 2 decades of patience to achieve his current financial status. Sometimes his investment has performed poorly, for example his stake in airline TWA and Eastman Kodak, but this has not deterred his burning ambitions. His patience is well-informed in that he knows when to sell and when to invest, and that is why he has not missed out in the right opportunities, despite his patience. The fact that AlWaleed Bin Talal’s business empire has not failed in spite of low economic seasons that are typical of the global economy talks volume of his persistent character. The successful investor must have been prepared to face the challenges and immense trials that come with running such a colossal business empire. Despite these challenges, AlWaleed has emianed resilient and hence continued to undertake his passionate investments. AlWaleed Bin Talal’s business empire runs across the world, which means that he has been a very hardworking investor, hence the achievement. He has, all through, worked hard to build networks, negotiated with co-investors, clients and potential investors in an attempt to grow his business - this has evidently materialized into a big success. It is also because of his flexible nature that he has known what the market needs at any moment and hence responded swiftly. In other words, the world of corporate business that he has dealt with needs high level of flexibility in order to be able to respond to constant change. He has managed to remain in the market because he has always adjusted to the demands of the market, for example by keeping up with innovations and technology. His immense capital base has also enabled him stay at the top because he has been capable of executing almost any of his investments without struggling (Peel 5). Works Cited Gustin, Sam, "News Corp., the Saudi Prince and the 'Ground Zero Mosque'", Daily Finance (AOL), 16 August 2010. Web. 11 May 2011 Knickmeyer, Ellen, "Saudi prince invests $300M for 3% stake in Twitter", Zawya Dow Jones via affiliate Market Watch, 19 December 2011. Web. 11 May 2011 Peel, Michael. "Prince Alwaleed, singular Saudi scion". Financial Times. 18 March 2013. Web 2 April 2013. Read More