

Prince Alwaleed And The Curious Case Of Kingdom Holding Stock (2013) - NN88
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2013/03/05/prince-alwaleed-and-the-curious-case-of-kingdom-holding-stock/

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idibidiart
The Saudi royal clan has some very sick people. Most of the conflict in the
middle east is financed and/or instigated by them. The Germans had concluded
their involvement in funding of some of the 9/11 terrorists. Not sure if it's
absolutely true but I wouldn't put them beyond it.

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TrainedMonkey
So only thing I got out of it, is it would be very profitable strategy to buy
Kingdom stock 3 months before FORBES list, and short immediately after. Now,
since he was removed from Forbes list, that would probably not work.

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incision
I'm reminded of two things:

A Vice piece on the contrast of slums and a billion-dollar home in Mumbai [1]
and a pair of 2008 billionaire suicides [2][3].

It makes me wonder if each of these guys and the profiled Alwaleed are just so
far abstracted from typical human wants that prestige and status become sole
obsessions?

1:
[http://youtu.be/8TMKyUdEEMo?t=17m43s](http://youtu.be/8TMKyUdEEMo?t=17m43s)
2:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/business/02madoff.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/business/02madoff.html?_r=2&)
3:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/recession/4210246/Adolf-M...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/recession/4210246/Adolf-
Merckle-what-made-this-German-billionaire-commit-suicide.html)

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wavefunction
Reading about guys like this or that billionaire whiner Perkins make me feel
very blessed. I'm not really motivated by money but I do recognize it is a
tool that allows for other things I am interested in. But then you get smacked
in the face with someone like the people you're talking about and realize that
your modest life is not too bad since you're not so out of touch with the
reality of the world...

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colechristensen
Everyone is out of touch with some reality or another.

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_nedR
The apparent vanity and ostentatiousness does leave a bad taste in my mouth,
but the CFO mentioned in the article does have a point - Why apply different
standards to this particular billionaire.

I am no expert- but according to the article, the prince's net worth was
calculated not directly from the publicly traded value of Kingdom holding, but
Forbes' own analysis of Kingdom's assets. If they applied that standard
uniformly I think half the paper billionaires would be off the list. Silicon
Valley companies are ridiculously overvalued if you consider P/E ratio. For
example,Toyota which had profits of $18 billion is valued at $190.2 billion
whereas Facebook which had profits of $1.914 billion is valued at $166
billion. To those arguing about Facebook's potential- I am not sure Facebook
will be around 10 years from now, but I am pretty sure Toyota will be. Yet
Mark Zuckerberg (who seems to have little assets other than his Facebook
stock) is at #21, while Alwaleed (who according to Forbes has a lot of
tangible assets) is at #31.

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zitterbewegung
According to bloomberg its trading at $6.70 (25.14 SAR)
[http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/KINGDOM:AB](http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/KINGDOM:AB)

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hrasyid
I'm wondering what do you guys find interesting in this profile?

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adwf
I'm guessing the moral parable about what happens when you forget that it's
not the money that matters, but what you can do with the money that's
important.

