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Although the Planet Hollywood business may look like just another indulgence of an eclectic entrepreneur, it ties into other businesses, including the News Corp. investment. In the Middle East, Alwaleed is the producer of top Arabic recording artists, including Najwa Karam and Kathem al Saher, and he has a major share in one of the most popular Arabic satellite TV networks, called Arab Radio and Television. Planet Hollywood is a great place to promote music and television stars.
One sector where synergy is working well for Alwaleed is hospitality. He has quietly become one of the largest private investors in, and owners of, hotels. And not coincidentally, hotel values and returns are soaring, as the recent battle for ITT Corp. (Sheraton) has demonstrated. His goal is to create, with international partners, a web of four- and five-star hotels around the world. He currently owns 50% of the Fairmont group, 30% of Movenpick, a Swiss chain, and 25% of the upmarket Four Seasons chain. He is the sole owner of the deluxe George V in Paris and owns half of the Inn on the Park in London and the Plaza in New York, plus 17 other luxury hotels. His blueprint calls for 42 new hotels in 15 countries, in addition to plans to develop 40 new franchises for Planet Hollywood in the Middle East and Europe. Says Alwaleed: "Three years ago, I started to get into the hospitality industry. It was really in the doldrums. The hotel industry had been hammered badly, especially the five-star hotels. Now everybody is talking about the hotel industry."
Alwaleed's success is partly explained by the blend of Saudi, Lebanese and American influences that have shaped his relatively short career. By his own reckoning, his investment savvy draws on a Bedouin's instinct for caution, a Levantine's flair for a bargain and a bean counter's fondness for the bottom line. "He has an extremely agile mind," says U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Wyche Fowler. "He is always two or three jumps ahead of you." Alwaleed can negotiate in Arabic, English and French.
The Prince's ultrarich uncles, the eldest sons of Ibn Saud, who rule Saudi Arabia today, have accumulated their wealth mainly by diverting huge sums, directly or indirectly, from the government's extravagant oil revenues. As a Riyadh businessman puts it, Alwaleed's branch of the Saud family tree has always been considered a little smoother and a little straighter than the rest. His father Talal, a former Ambassador to France, was one of the "free princes" who demanded democratization and went into temporary exile during the troubled 1953-64 reign of King Saud. Alwaleed's mother, Princess Mona, is the daughter of Riad Solh, the first Prime Minister of independent Lebanon.
Alwaleed's parents divorced when he was barely school age. Growing up with his mother's family in swinging, pre-civil war Beirut made him into a wild and, at 189 lbs., seriously paunchy teenager. Talal yanked him back to Riyadh and reality and installed him at the King Abdul Aziz Military Academy. Alwaleed credits the experience for giving him his strong personal discipline. Later, business and social science degrees from Menlo College in California and Syracuse University gave Alwaleed the know-how to make his start.