Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud
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Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud (Arabic: الوليد بن طلال آل سعود; born 7 March 1955) is a Saudi Arabian billionaire businessman, investor, and a House of Saud royal. In 2008, he was listed on Time magazine's Time 100, an annual list of the hundred most influential people in the world. Al Waleed is a grandson of Abdulaziz, the first king of Saudi Arabia, and of Riad Al Solh, Lebanon's first prime minister. Al Waleed is the founder, chief executive officer (CEO) and 95 percent owner of the Kingdom Holding Company, a Saudi conglomerate company. In 2013, the company had a market capitalization of over $18 billion. He owns Paris' Four Seasons Hotel George V and part of New York's Plaza Hotel. Time has called him the "Arabian Warren Buffett". In November 2017, Forbes listed Al Waleed as the 7th-richest man in the world, with a net worth of $39.8 billion. On 4 November 2017, Al Waleed and other prominent Saudis (including fellow billionaires Waleed bin Ibrahim Al Ibrahim and Saleh Abdullah Kamel) were arrested in Saudi Arabia as part of Mohammed bin Salman's purge to centralize power in Saudi Arabia. The allegations against Al Waleed include money laundering, bribery, and extorting officials. Some of the detainees were held in the Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh. Al Waleed was released from detention on 27 January 2018, following a financial settlement of some kind, after nearly three months in detention. In March 2018 he was dropped from the World's Billionaires list due to lack of current information. He was listed in the 'Top 100 most powerful Arabs' from 2013 to 2021 by Gulf Business.