After graduating from Menlo College with a Bachelor of Arts and from Syracuse University with a Master of Science, he is reported to have used a $30,000 loan from his father to begin brokering deals with foreign companies wanting to do business in Saudi Arabia.

This was followed by land deals in the 1980s, along with major investments in the Saudi banking industry, which proved to be undervalued at the time. His activities as an investor really took off when he bought a substantial chunk of shares in an ailing Citibank, in the 1990s. His holdings in Citibank are now said to account for half his wealth.

He also has a seven per stake in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation Limited and has made big investments in AOL, Apple Inc., Worldcom, and Motorola.

While considered to be outside politics, he drew the ire of New Yorkers and the then Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the US. While touring the site of the World Trade Center attack, he suggested the United States “should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause.”

Mayor Giuliani subsequently rejected the Prince’s $10 million donation to disaster relief.

The Beach Times. August 17, 2007