Who are the richest Arabs in the UK?

Who are the richest Arabs in the UK?
Al-Araby al-Jadeed takes a look at some of the wealthiest Arab individuals and families living in the Britain.
5 min read
29 April, 2015
London At Dusk With The London Eye, Jubilee Bridge And Houses Of Parliament [Getty]

The world has 45 Arab billionaires with more personal wealth than the combined yearly budgets of the 11 poorest Arab countries, according to a yearly list of the wealthiest people.

Al-Araby al-Jadeed takes a look at some of the wealthiest Arab people or families in the United Kingdom:

Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber and family
Wealth: £5,935m
Al Jaber, 56, runs London-based MBI International Holding Group, which has interests in property, hotels, food and energy. Last year the Saudi claimed $10bn damages from Barclays Bank, over what Al Jaber alleged was the bank's corruption in Saudi Arabian deals. His foundation provides scholarships for students from the Middle East and North Africa to attend leading universities. Al Jaber has homes in Britain, Europe and his homeland. Among the MBI assets are JJW Hotels & Resorts.

Mahdi al-Tajir
Wealth: £1,670m
A £500m development called gWest is being led by al-Tajir and his family near Gleneagles in Scotland, which hosted the 2014 Ryder Cup. The Emirati has metal trading, oil and gas interests, and a large property portfolio. He owns Highland Spring, the mineral water operation. Al-Tajir, 83, has a palatial London home and a 24,000-acre Perthshire estate. We see £325m of assets in the 2013 accounts of five al-Tajir companies.

 
Wafic Said
Wafic Said
Wealth: £1,500m
Said, 75, came to Britain to help his brother run a kebab restaurant in London. He befriended two young Saudi princes, Bandar and Khalid, and was well rewarded for looking after their financial affairs. Damascus-born Said, whose wife, Rosemary, is English, has homes in Monaco and Paris and an Oxfordshire estate. He gave the Said Business School at the University of Oxford a £20m founding donation close on two decades ago and a further £50m of support has followed since. His Said Foundation, which also helps children in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine, spent more than £4.5m last year in addition to close to £1.5m of personal donations. Rosemary Said and their son Khaled have made political donations totalling just under £600,000 since January 2010, most of them to the Conservative party.

Farhad Moshiri
Wealth: £1,360m
Iranian-born Moshiri, 59, is a leading shareholder in Arsenal football club. With Alisher Usmanov he has a near-30 percent stake worth £285m. Moshiri is a British citizen who lives in Monaco. He has been the Russian tycoon's financial adviser since 1989. Moshiri has a 10 percent stake in USM Holdings, which groups together Usmanov's interests. He did well from the flotation of Russian mobile phone company OAO Megafon.

 
Mohamed al-Fayed
Mohamed al-Fayed and family
Wealth: £1,300m
Al-Fayed, 86, owns the 65,000-acre Balnagown estate in Scotland, where he makes his own whisky. He sold Harrods in 2010 for £1.5bn to Qatari Holdings and pocketed at least £900m. His other assets include the Ritz hotel in Paris. He sold Fulham football club for between £150m and £200m.

Sir Nadhmi Auchi
Wealth: £1,235m
Surrey-based Auchi grew up in Iraq but has lived in Britain for more than three decades. He turned General Mediterranean Holding (GMH), into a conglomerate spanning hotels, including Le Royal Luxembourg, to telecom companies in the Middle East. GMH has assets of £3bn. Auchi, 77, was knighted for his work in charitable, humanitarian and inter-religious fields.

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani
Wealth: £1,200m
Sandhurst-educated Al-Thani, 55, is a former prime minister of Qatar and oversaw the investment of billions of dollars of the emirate's cash while head of the Qatar Investment Authority. He owns some of London's most prestigious addresses and was the main backer for One Hyde Park, the luxury development by the Candy brothers. He has agreed a £924m takeover for Tony Buckingham's Heritage Oil.

Mo Ibrahim

Wealth: £710m
Ibrahim, 68, a Sudan-born British citizen, founded Mobile Systems International, which was sold for $916m. Ibrahim stayed with what became Celtel, which was sold for $3.4bn, earning £480m for Ibrahim and his family. He put £100m into a private equity fund to promote business in Africa and £57m into a charitable trust to aid good African governance. The foundation encourages African leaders to leave power peacefully and in March awarded $5m to outgoing Namibian president Hifikepunye Pohamba.

May Makhzoumi and husband Fouad Makhzoumi
May Makhzoumi and family
Wealth: £700m 
Makhzoumi, 62, is the London-based wife of Fouad Makhzoumi, a Lebanese industrialist and philanthropist. She has given more than £1m to the Tory party in the past five years, including a £500,000 donation in 2013. The family wealth derives from Future Pipe, a Dubai-based company that makes fibreglass pipes for large infrastructure projects. There is talk of a float.

Ayman Asfari and family
Wealth: £575m
Syrian-born Asfari, 56, led the flotation of London-based oil services group Petrofac. The fall in oil prices has cut his stake to £500m. He sold £56m of shares at the float and more since. His Asfari Foundation empowers young people. He has given just under £500,000 to the Conservative party in the past five years.

Assem Allam and family
Wealth: £340m 
Allam, 75, left Egypt in 1968 and took over a Hull-based engine group in 1981, renaming it Allam Marine. He owns Hull City football club and is one of few business people in the Rich List to support Labour. He has given the party £500,000 since the turn of the year and £716,900 in all over the course of the last parliament. Allam last year gave close to £9m to build a new headquarters for the Hull-York medical school and has spent heavily on promoting sport through a £250,000 ongoing sponsorship of the British Squash Open, with a further gift of £60,000 for local football clubs in and around Hull.

Rashad Naqaweh and family
Wealth: £217m
Genz Holdings, a London-based investor in diverse areas such as telecoms and aviation, is run and owned by Syrian Naqaweh, 47, and his family. 

Kaveh Alamouti
Wealth: £130m 
Alamouti, 60, earned £26.5m at Tokai Bank in 1992-95. The London-based Iranian later joined Citadel, leaving in February 2014 to run his private investments.

Nemir Kirdar
Wealth: £130m
Iraq-born Kirdar, 78, steps down in June from Investcorp, which he launched in 1982 to invest the wealth of Gulf states. The Bahrain operation has $11.4bn of assets under management. He lives in London.

Mahomed Galadari
Wealth: £125m 
London-based developer Galadari, 49, bought the Crowne Plaza hotel in Blackfriars for £85m. His Blackfriars Hotels company had £28.3m assets in 2013.

Source: Sunday Times Rich List