|
The Sunday Times
Sunday, 10 March 1985
Selling the national jewels
Is nothing sacred? Bit by bit, the very things that make Britain what it is for many of us chaps are falling into foreign hands. Now it looks as if Harrods will go the same way. Who are these Egyptian fellows who are after our most famous store? And what on earth will they do with it?
IVAN FALLON finds out
THE AL-FAYED brothers, prospective owners of Harrods, found one particular newspaper comment hilarious last week. The Daily Star published a cartoon showing the famous Knightsbridge store as a bazaar, with burnoused Arabs selling everything from fake Egyptian antiques to Elephants. Gleefully the brothers pretended to identify each other. "That's you, Ali," said Mohamed, pointing at an evil-looking character poring through a bin marked "feelthy postcards". "And that's you, Mou-Mou!" returned his brother, pointing to a fat greasy Arab of the type that once greeted liners at Port Said.
Not many people would have the self confidence or sense of humour to laugh -- they were still chuckling hours later -- at such a blatantly racial jibe. They will, no doubt, have to take more of the same while their £615 bid for the House of Fraser (of which Harrods is part) is considered. "Union Jack" Hayward roared from his Bahamas base last Friday: "It is monstrous that a group of Arabs of dubious background is taking over Britain's biggest department store."
In fact the Al-Fayed brothers -- Mohamed, Ali and Salah -- could not be more different from the caricaturist's (or "Union Jack's") image. On the sixth floor of their own apartment block on Park Lane last week there was not a burnous in sight. Mohamed and Ali (Salah was not present) were dressed in an impeccably western style and had equally impeccable manners. Champagne and caviar were served by their butler, Sydney, who once buttled for the Duke of Windsor and was inherited by the Al-Fayeds when they bought the Hotel Ritz in Paris.
There is already a strong British element to the Al-Fayeds. Ali has a British wife and his children have British passports. Mohamed's son, Dodi, went to Sandhurst. They backed the film Chariots of Fire, insisting every actor in it was British. They have even bought, and renovated, a Scottish castle -- Balnagown, seat of the Earls of Ross.
Mohamed, clearly the family head, is 51, his English only slightly accented, his grammar only rarely askew (he learned six languages at school in Alexandria). Ali is even more anglified, taller and leaner than Mohamed. They are both humorous, clever conversationalists, guarded only when it comes to questions about their wealth -- or security precautions. No photograph exists of them in any newspaper file and, hospitable though they were last week, they firmly refused to pose. Security is a worry, not just because of their riches but also because of Middle East politics: the gap between the Al-Fayeds and the PLO, for example, is at least as great as that between, say, the Duke of Westminster and the IRA.
They display a lofty disdain for the nouveaux riches of the Arab world. Their great grandfather, Ali Ali Fayed, began the family fortune growing cotton in the Nile delta. This was shipped to mills in Lancashire [England] and sometimes even ended up as Egyptian sheets, a great luxury at the time, in Harrods. The brothers delicately pointed out that their family lived in some luxury when even the Saudi royal family lived in tents in the desert. The family does not see itself in the Arab tradition at all, but as part of something much older. Egypt, Mohamed pointed out, was the cradle of civilisation. He and his family, he implied, are inheritors of the tradition of the Pharaohs, not that of the desert.
The family's link with Egypt was abruptly ended when President Nasser nationalised their business. The family moved, settling as much as they have settled anywhere, in Switzerland. "I have not been back in Egypt in 25 years. The country is finished, there is nothing there now," Mohamed said.
Fortunately their grandfather had begun investing in property in Paris and Switzerland 80 years ago, and there was a major fleet of ships (Nasser got only two) carrying pilgrims and cargo around the Gulf. Already wealthy when they left Egypt, the Al-Fayeds have multiplied their fortune many times since?
How wealthy are they now? Put another way, how big a proportion of the family fortune would House of Fraser be? Mohamed grinned: "That would be telling you how much I have in my pocket". Hastily he covered his pocket.
AT THAT moment, two miles away in the City, Tiny Rowland of Lonrho, himself a long-time bidder for Fraser, was insisting that the Al-Fayeds did not have the money to buy the group (although in November they paid him £138 million cash for 29.9% of it) and were in fact fronting for the Sultan of Brunei. The brothers insist the money is theirs and their bankers, Kleinwort Benson, confirm this.
But where can they have made over £600m, which, even by Middle East oil money standards -- and the Al-Fayeds are only marginally in oil -- is a lot of cash? Their existing interests are considerable: property in New York, London, Paris, and other major cities, a bank in San Antonio ("a small one"), and shipping and construction interests. Mohamed related how in 1966 he offered to build a new harbour for Sheikh Rashid of Dubai. "My ships carrying pilgrims could not get in. There was no proper harbour, just a creek." Dubai didn't discover its own oil until 1971 and at that stage was penniless. The Al-Fayeds raised the money -- some £500m -- designed and had the dock built by Costain, and then later passed it on to the (by then) wealthy Rashid. They also built the £500 million trade centre that dominates Dubai. In all, Mohamed reckons he has done over £2 billion worth of construction in the Middle East.
|
|
