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(Continued from overleaf)
He has in focus not only plans for Harrods' goods being on sale all over the United States but opening a branch in New York.
Clearly Al-Fayed's final dream is to see a Harrods chain around the world… or at the very least to open mini-stores within the most prestigious shops like Bloomingdale's in New York and Neiman Marcus in Dallas.
He has had considerable experience at buying in an atmosphere of fear and concern at a foreigner
about to ruin a much-loved institution, only to win over, with his charm and brilliant business acumen,
both the staff and the public.
Take the famous Ritz Hotel in Paris, which he bought for £25 million. It was run-down and demoralised when he won control. But he employed 1,000 French workmen for seven years and spent £35 million on renovation before being satisfied. Even curators and craftsmen from the Palace at Versailles, home of Louis XIV, were consulted about the refurbishments.
He is fiercely protectionist over what he does own, so ersatz Harrods' merchandise would be fought relentlessly.
He spent close on £10 million bringing court actions in France and America to protect the copyright of the Ritz name. The Charles of the Ritz perfume company in France was one of his targets in the French Courts.
What about the mock Argentinean Harrods in Buenos Aires ?
'I'd certainly be on to stopping copies of Harrods, like the one there. I would be asking them to change their name -- or take the consequences.'
His family fortunes were planted in cotton by his great grandfather, who began shipping it in his own freighters from Alexandria to the cotton mills of Lancashire, via Liverpool. He and his brothers left their native Egypt as the nationalisation of commerce loomed with the abdication of King Farouk.
He made a new fortune in Dubai in concerted business ventures.
He is a rare bird in business -- a sentimentalist beneath his grizzled, thinning hair, Chaplin-black eyebrows and firm jaw. In his 50s, he is still vain enough to worry about his figure and diet.
Affection
'I've been offered all sorts of nationalities to take my business to those countries, but, to me, Britain is a second home,' he said.
'It doesn't detract from my love of Egypt, which is one of the greatest civilisations in terms of art, medicine, religion and culture. I still travel on my Egyptian passport.
'Let's face it' -- he has an affection for idiomatic English -- 'I have a five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son born in Britain with British passports,' said the man whose private life had remained as closed as King Tut's tomb -- until now. His second wife is a Finn.
As I got up to leave I noticed a sign on the window shelf. It said: 'There's no limit to what a man can do if he doesn't mind who gets the credit.'
In a business dominated by giant egos and ruthless men bent on self-glory, it is a remarkable creed by which to live.
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