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Alwaleed and Mur­doch

COMMENT: A wide­ly report­ed sto­ry con­cerns the “20th [9/11] hijack­er” Zac­cha­rias Mous­saoui’s accu­sa­tions that a num­ber of promi­nent Sau­di princes helped finance al-Qae­da, includ­ing Prince Alwaleed, the fab­u­lous­ly wealthy investor who was the sec­ond largest stock­hold­er in Rup­pert Mur­doch’s News­corp.

The day after the report sur­faced, we learn that Alwaleed sold almost all of his stock in the firm.

We won­der if the two events might be con­nect­ed?

“Pre‑9/11 Ties Haunt Saud­is as New Accu­sa­tions Sur­face” by Ben Hub­bard and Scott Shane; The New York Times; 2/4/2015.

Dur­ing the 1980s and ’90s, the his­toric alliance between the wealthy monar­chy of Sau­di Ara­bia and the country’s pow­er­ful cler­ics emerged as the major financier of inter­na­tion­al jihad, chan­nel­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars to Mus­lim fight­ers in Afghanistan, Bosnia and else­where. Among the project’s major patrons was Prince Salman Bin Abdu­laz­iz al-Saud, who last month became Sau­di Arabia’s king.

Some of those fight­ers lat­er formed Al Qae­da, which declared war on the Unit­ed States and lat­er mount­ed major attacks inside Sau­di Ara­bia as well. . . .

. . . . A third promi­nent name Mr. Mous­saoui list­ed was Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a fab­u­lous­ly wealthy investor whose tele­vi­sion chan­nels air racy music videos and who employs men and women side by side in his offices. . . .

“Mur­doch Los­es Sau­di Ally at News Corp” by Matthew Gar­ra­han, Stephen Foley, Hen­ry Mance and Sime­on Kerr; The Finan­cial Times; 2/4/2015.

Rupert Mur­doch has lost an impor­tant News Corp ally after Prince Alwaleed bin Talal sold most of his stake, a move that could embold­en dis­si­dent share­hold­ers to chal­lenge Mr Murdoch’s grip on the media com­pa­ny.

King­dom Hold­ing Com­pa­ny, Prince Alwaleed’s invest­ment vehi­cle, sold about SR705m ($188m) of B shares in the media com­pa­ny, cut­ting its stake from 6.6 per cent to 1 per cent. It said it had decid­ed to reduce its stake dur­ing a port­fo­lio review, but gave no fur­ther expla­na­tion. . . .