2023-09-03 05:29:25
BBC
Posted on: Sunday, September 3, 2023 – 8:29 am | Last update: Sunday, September 3, 2023 – 8:29 AM
We turn to The Times newspaper, which published a report entitled “What will happen to Mohamed Al-Fayed’s fortune of 1.7 billion pounds sterling?” Written by Robert Watts and Glen Keogh.
The report indicates that Al-Fayed grew up in the slums of Egypt, selling Coca-Cola, while a self-made billionaire died in Britain at the age of 94.
And now the scene is set for a dispute-style succession dispute between the businessman’s four children by his second wife, 68-year-old Henny Wathen, over his £1.7 billion empire, according to the report.
The report discusses the most prominent properties of Al-Fayed, as he owned, at different stages of his long life, luxurious apartments in the “Park Lane” area in London and Manhattan, New York, and a luxurious home in Surrey, a Scottish castle located on an area of 65,000 acres of land, nine Rolls-Royce cars and a group of Artifacts, and sometime English football club Fulham.
After his death, his children are set to inherit dozens of millions of pounds worth of assets – including the jewel of his financial empire, the Paris Ritz Hotel – with some assets also passing to his widow Wathen, a Finnish socialite and former model.
But relations are already strained between Yasmine, 42, Karim, 39, Kamila, 38, and Omar, 35.
At a Supreme Court hearing in 2021, Omar claimed he was assaulted by Camilla’s bodyguards in a row over a mobile phone, while she claimed he was “under the influence of drugs” at the time. The judge ordered the disputing brothers to settle the matter separately.
The Egyptian-born businessman’s assets are spread across the world, with ownership held through trusts and in tax havens including Bermuda, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.
And the report says that the man almost certainly left behind a large pile of cash, as he received more than 368 million pounds from the profits of Harrods, before selling it in 2010 for 1.5 billion pounds. He also sold Fulham for between 150 and 200 million pounds three years later.
His sons struggled to build fortunes of their own, and the tensions between them have drawn comparisons to the fictional Roy family depicted in Britain’s Sky Atlantic series Succession, who squabble for control of their father’s media empire.
Yasmine Al-Fayed established her own fashion brand in 2006, but it incurred losses amounting to about 9 million pounds sterling and closed after four years, as did her sister Camilla, who penetrated the field of fashion before launching a vegetarian restaurant in West London and a food company, but she also suffered losses.
Their brother, Karim, maintained a lower level of interest. After becoming severely deaf after contracting meningitis at the age of two, he later set up a business selling hearing aids.
As for Omar, he was once groomed to be the heir to his father’s empire, joining the board of directors of Harrods and other Al Fayed companies in his early twenties. Recently, he founded a tech project that explores the colonization of the moon in an environmentally friendly way.
The report concluded: “There is no doubt that Al-Fayed left a huge impact on British society. It remains to be seen whether his sons can use the man’s hard-earned billions to leave their own mark.”
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