Alwaleed

Recently, I got to borrow this book from the National Library while i was glancing through the investment section. With lots of literature on Warren Buffet, a biography on Prince Alwaleed known as the "Warren Buffet of Middle East" and the largest individual shareholder of Citigroup seems to be an interesting read.

From just a US$30000 dollars start up capital given by his dad and a US$300000 dollars bank loan from Citibank, he was able to amass a fortune of around 24 billion as of 2004. He started off using his status as a prince to embark on the construction and infrastructure boom of Saudi Arabia by being the middleman and earning commissions. He then made strategic investments in the equity markets to grow his wealth. The book goes about explaining his investment strategy of buying good brand names at depressed level and sitting on them. His biggest bet was on Citibank which he put in about half of his wealth at that point of investment. It also goes through his gruelling schedule whereby he will usually just sleep for around 4 to 5 hours a day. On business trips, his lifestyle seems to come out of a James Bond movie with private jets, booking of the whole cinema and a big entourage moving along with him wherever he goes.

The book do get kind of repetitive and dull in the later chapters but it was quite a page turner for the earlier chapters. Worth a read especially if you can loan it from the library for free.

Lee