Alwaleed Bin Talal sells $567m hotel

Three months since his release from detention at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding and its partners have agreed to sell Movenpick Hotels and Resorts to its associate firm AccorHotels.

The sale, which is reportedly worth $567 million, is expected to close in the second half of 2018. It will raise further questions about the Saudi billionaire’s financial health especially since Kingdom Holding also sold its stake in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beirut for around $100-115 million earlier this year.

Alwaleed, the Kingdom’s most recognised business figure, was freed on 27 January after being held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel for three months on the orders of his cousin Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman as part of an “anti-corruption” crackdown.

READ: Billions ‘wiped off’ Al-Waleed’s fortune following his arrest

Alwaleed, a nephew of Saudi King Salman, is closely watched in international markets because of investments in companies such as Citigroup and Twitter. He has declined to provide details of any financial agreement he may have made with Bin Salman to secure his release. But it is widely suspected that Alwaleed, who has tried to downplay his detention by describing it as just a “misunderstanding”, relinquished most of his wealth for freedom.

The largest part of Alwaleed’s $17.4 billion fortune lies in Kingdom Holding which accounts for 95 per cent of his wealth.

Alwaleed was detained by the Crown Prince along with hundreds of other royals and heads of business last year. While the Saudi regime insisted that it was part of a wider effort to “crackdown on corruption”, many felt it was a shakedown authorised by a desperate Crown Prince to raise billions of dollars.