Contact Your Financial Adviser Money Making MC
17 November 2017
 |
| Lebanon Saudi Business (The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions) |
Lebanon-based businessmen who lost enterprises through dealings with
members of Saudi Arabia's royal family and others in the kingdom are closely watching
a new campaign led by the powerful crown prince targeting officials, princes
and tycoons in the oil-rich kingdom, hoping it will help them win back what
they lost over the years. The Total
Investment & Insurance Solutions
The campaign, which Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says is aimed at
cracking down on corruption in the kingdom, has been met with skepticism by
many. With dozens of powerful princes, business leaders and government
officials in custody, the move has provoked speculation the crackdown is more
about consolidating power than curbing corruption. Others speculate the move
amounts to a shake-down of wealthy players for their assets as the crown prince
tries to implement sensitive economic reforms in the face of lower oil prices.
Either way, many in the kingdom welcome efforts to fight rampant
corruption and abuse of power, and many outside it hope the move will encourage
people to invest in the kingdom without fear. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
Since the first week of November, some 201 people have been taken into
custody by Saudi authorities in a sweep that investigators say has uncovered at
least $100 billion in corruption. The detainees include Cabinet ministers,
members of the royal family and the owners of three TV networks that are among
the largest in the Middle East. The
Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
The crackdown that began on Nov. 4 initially targeted 11 princes, 38
officials, military officers as well as business leaders. An estimated 1,700
individual bank accounts have been frozen. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
Saudi critics and experts have called the unprecedented purge of top
princes and businessmen by the crown prince, also known by his initials MBS, a
bold and risky move aimed at consolidating power as he keeps an eye on the
throne, sidelining potential rivals and dismantling alliances built with other
branches of the royal family. The Total
Investment & Insurance Solutions
Pierre Daher, who founded the first private TV station in Lebanon in
1985 and turned it into one of the top media outlets in the Arab world, has
been locked in court cases with detained Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one
of the world's richest men, since 2011. The prince, whose maternal grandfather
Riad Solh was once Lebanon's prime minister and also holds Lebanese
citizenship, has investments that include Twitter, Apple, Citigroup and the
Four Seasons hotel chain and was once a significant shareholder in Rupert
Murdoch's News Corporation, but sold much of those shares in 2015.
Their court battles are over Lebanon's leading LBC and the affiliated
Production and Acquisition Company, widely known as PAC, which filed for
liquidation in 2012. Some 400 PAC employees lost their jobs and are still
waiting for Prince Alwaleed to compensate them. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
Prince Alwaleed and Daher, now chairman and CEO of LBC, were once allies
when the prince pumped money into LBC TV before the two split over several
issues and Daher was removed from his job as head of PAC. Prince Alwaleed ended
up taking over the LBC SAT and PAC while Daher took LBC.
"The disgraceful behavior of Alwaleed by making the company (PAC)
bankrupt fraudulently while it was not bankrupt and had assets. PAC was able to
continue normally but he mechanically made up bankruptcy," said Daher in
his LBC office in the posh town of Adma north of Beirut.
Several cases between the two are still ongoing in countries including
Lebanon, Britain and the Cayman Islands. Daher says that he is suing Prince
Alwaleed for more than $100 million and is optimistic he will win.
Lebanese media outlets reported this month that two Beirut hotels owned
by Prince Alwaleed's Kingdom Holding are for sale. The Four Seasons and
Mövenpick Hotel are among Beirut's most luxurious hotels and are located in two
of the capital's most posh neighborhoods.
"If the hotels are not in the person's name, not in the name of the
defendant himself in person, you cannot garnish them since they belong to a
company," said Paul Morcos, legal expert and founder and owner of Justicia
Consulting Law firm in Beirut. The
Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
Morcos added that the prosecution that is done in Saudi Arabia does not
directly affect a prosecution taking place in Lebanon.
Attempts to reach a representative of Prince Alwaleed at Kingdom Holding
were not immediately successful. The
Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
Another person who lost millions of dollars in the kingdom as a result
of alleged corruption is Lebanon-based U.S. citizen Yahya Lotfi Khader who for
more than 20 years ran petrochemical businesses along with his two partners in
eastern Saudi Arabia. The Total
Investment & Insurance Solutions
The Syria-born, 57-year-old businessman said he left the kingdom two
years ago after he became the victim of interference by officials who worked in
the office of a once powerful prince, Saoud bin Nayef, the brother of the
former crown prince who was removed from his post earlier this year. Khader put
forward documents that proves they have lost tens of millions of dollars in
cases that he says were manipulated by powerful people in the kingdom.
"There is widespread corruption from princes to ministers to judges
to lawyers to businessmen," Khader said, speaking in his posh apartment
overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in the north Beirut suburb of Dbayeh.
"Regrettably there are people who are taking advantage of the wealth and
powers of the kingdom and are taking it in the wrong direction." The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
Khader added that the first step by MBS is to fight corruption and
people in the kingdom have been waiting for an "awakening against
corruption." Khader said "Saudi Arabia has all the capabilities to
become one of the most important countries in the world If we can fight
corruption and it will not be an easy mission but we are very optimistic about
what happened."
Khader has sent documents listing all the injustice they were subjected
to in the kingdom to the office of King Salman and MBS hoping that it could
help them return to the kingdom and get back their money that are worth tens of
millions of dollars. The Total
Investment & Insurance Solutions
"What is happening in Saudi Arabia is a game changer. It is turning
the country on the political, economic, social and religious levels," said
Daher of LBC.
He added: "Today there is a new Saudi Arabia that is totally
different from what it used to be but it is still early to judge it."The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
No comments:
Post a Comment