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(Continued from overleaf)
Whatever Fleet Street might say about them, in Egypt this 'most distinguished Fayed family' (Sunday Telegraph) remains as wraith-like as a sphinx. It appeared I had lost the cotton trail in the shifting desert sands.
In the Yacht Club -- more faded colonial elegance -- someone said he knew Salah Fayed, the second of the brothers. 'He is a water ski fanatic. We call him "the flying bat" in Alex,' he said. 'When he is in Egypt, he handles their shipping interests.'
I thus decided to concentrate on the Fayed shipping dynasty. Salah Fayed was staying at the Shereton Heliopolis hotel in Cairo, but at the Thebes shipping company in Alexandria I contacted a legal expert who handled Greek and other foreign shipping companies in the pre-Nasser days. He told me: 'Leon Carasso owned the Naggar shipping company and he sold his agency to Mohamed Fayed in 1959. This was nationalised in 1961 and taken over by the state-run Amon company.'
I promptly telephoned Carasso in New York. He confirmed that he had sold his agency in 11/13 Post Street cheaply to the Fayeds when the going got tough for Jews in Egypt. Mohamed had paid him part of the money in Egypt and promised the rest later. They had recently settled their court case. It had been a three-men-in-a-room agency with no ships of its own. 'His name was Fayed, not Al-Fayed.'
Why had they changed their name from Fayed to Al-Fayed in London? Lloyd's Register had no Fayed ships registered before 1961, and none were listed among those that were nationalised. In the Amon, Thebes, Memphis ad Abu Simbel shipping companies, I consulted those who had been in business before 1961 and showed them the cutting from The Mail on Sunday: 'Before nationalisation, the Al-Fayeds' riches stemmed from shipping and the grandfather's cotton business, which played a dominant position in Europe.'
The person who was briefly in charge of the Fayeds' Middle East Navigation Shipping Company after nationalisation could not remember them owning any ships but everyone in shipping knew of the Fayeds' present agency, Vavia, in Tosson Street. 'The Fayeds own the 3,000 ton ro-ro ships "Emma Dala," "Salahala" and "Mashala," of the Genoa Gilvani Line,' they told me, obviously unaware of the great shipping empire in their midst. It was the Daily Mail which said: 'The billionaire brothers control more than half the shipping in the Mediterranean... Mohamed's tonnage in freighters plying the Mediterranean makes him an Onassis of cargo.'
It appears that the Fayeds practise English understatement in their Egyptian homeland. To find the trail lost in desert sands, cotton fields and Mediterranean waves, I decided to return to their family background. This led me to the illustrious Victoria College in Alexandria. In the Sunday Telegraph, I had read that 'the Fayeds were educated at British schools and had British nannies.' Victoria College was indeed famous before nationalisation. King Hussein of Jordan, Saudi princes, Adnan Khashoggi and everyone who is anyone in Alexandria today attended the college. A Daily Mail interview explained: 'Mohamed Al-Fayed's Englishness can be credited to his English nanny and to his education in one of the pre-Nasser, English-style public schools, Victoria, in Alexandria, where he was caned and stuffed full of English crumpets by his Oxbridge-educated masters.'
A meeting with a prominent Alexandrian who keeps records of all old Victorians was not helpful. Although he knew the Fayeds, he was certain that none of them had attended Victoria College. In an interview with the New York Times, Mohamed had revealed that he 'graduated from the University of Alexandria with a degree in economics.' To short-circuit the laborious record system, I asked an Egyptian professor, who had also been a fellow at Cambridge, to obtain confirmation. 'Sorry,' he said after two days, 'the Registrar cannot find any record of a degree for Mohamed Abdul Moneim Fayed.'
The inability of the Egyptians to match Fleet Street's high standards of reporting was depressing. I studied the Mail interview: 'The Al-Fayeds owned hotels in Alexandria.' There are only two hotels in Alexandria, nationalised in 1961: the Cecil and the San Stefano. I visited the Cecil first, but it was built and owned by a Swiss, Metzger, whose widow and son are now suing the state for compensation. Although the head waiter and receptionist worked there before nationalisation, they could not remember the Al-Fayeds as clients. But in the San Stefano, I finally struck Pharaoh gold. A lawyer confirmed that the San Stefano, together with the Continental in Cairo, had been owned by the Anglo-American Nile Company. The main shareholders were the Jacques and Robert Barcelone brothers. But 500 shares, valued at four Egyptian pound each (£2), were bought cheaply by Mohamed Fayed in 1958 from a Lebanese named Boghos, who had to leave the country.
Mohamed would have paid around 2,000 Egyptian pounds (about £1,000), and was, therefore, a minority shareholder in the hotels. After nationalisation, the hotels were taken over by National Hotels on 8 January 1964, though shareholders received less than the nominal value of the shares. Little wonder Mohamed Fayed told the Sunday Times: 'I have not been back in Egypt in 25 years. The country is finished; there is nothing there now.'
Having discovered the first trace of the elusive Fayed fortune, I turned myself to the haunts previously frequented by Alexandrian society. The Mehmet Ali, the Union, the Sporting and the Yacht clubs and the Pastrodis restaurant. But old clients and staff had not come across the Fayeds. 'Go to the Union Restaurant,' I was told, 'it is still there, and so is the mâitre d'hôtel, Photios Photaros, who is a superb raconteur.'
In the old days, the Union was the gourmet restaurant: white caviar was flown in from Iran, oysters from Portugal, fois gras and wine from France, Salmon from the UK, pumpernickel from West Germany and retsina from Greece. Pillars partition the room to give it intimacy, but the velvet curtains have faded, the paint on the pink and brown walls is flaking and the Art Deco lights hang on for dear life. 'Photios,' I ask the old man, brother of the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Alexandria, 'tell me about your clients in the heydays of Alexandria.'
Photios remembers the parties of the bygone age with the intimate recall of true affection. He remembers the war years, when Field Marshall Montgomery sat on the chair at the corner table of the restaurant, issuing battle orders until four in the morning. He remembers the British officers who adopted the place as their own special club, and the rich businessmen from the Union Bank and Cotton Exchange who negotiated multi-million pound deals over the white-clothed tables. He remembers the favourite dishes of General de Gaulle, Aly Khan and Rita Heyworth, and the visits of Sir Anthony Eden, King Farouk and Archbishop Makarios.
But he does not remember the Al-Fayeds. 'Who?' said Photios, his military moustache bristling.
'The fabulous Fayeds.'
'Never heard of them.'
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