Billionaire Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed died last Wednesday, August 30, his family said in a statement 48 hours later. “He enjoyed a long and complete retirement surrounded by his loved ones. “The family asks that their privacy be respected at this time,” the text reads. Al-Fayed, who died aged 94, withdrew from public life in the last decade and lived with his Finnish wife Heini in his villa in Surrey, UK.
The businessman, who owned London’s legendary Harrods department store as well as Fulham FC football club for a quarter of a century, was a prominent protagonist in Britain’s economic and political life and saw his son Dodi occupy the front page of tabloid newspapers as a result of his affair with Diana Spencer , Lady Di, who by this time had already divorced Charles of England. Both died in a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997, during a chase in which they fled paparazzi through the streets of the French capital.
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The death of his son and Diana herself left Mohamed Al-Fayed devastated, who began to fuel conspiracy theories to explain the accident, blaming what happened on the British royal family – particularly Felipe de Edinburgh -, the British and others attributed to French secret services and even the American CIA.
Born in Alexandria in January 1929 as the son of a school teacher, he married Samira Khashoggi in 1954, the sister of the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who died in June 2017. It was Mohamed Abdel Mena Fayed, better known by his diminutive form of Dodi.
The businessman founded a maritime transport company for several years, but true power and importance only came to him in the 1960s, when he became personal advisor to one of the richest men in the world, the Sultan of Brunei. In the 1970s, Al Fayed moved to England (the “Al” in his surname was, according to legend, registered in that country to give his name more status) and never moved from there. Although he was welcomed for his money but never fully accepted by the British establishment, he was denied British citizenship twice – in 1994 and 1999.
Mohamed Al-Fayed and Lady Di, in Saint-Tropez (France), in July 1997. No attribution ( / Cordon Press / Cordon Press)
In addition to taking over the Harrods department store in 1985, in the same year he bought the Hotel Ritz in Paris, the Parisian villa where the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (King Edward VIII, who abdicated in favor of his brother George) lived for years Exile. VI, and his wife, American divorcee Wallis Simpson), which was in a serious state of neglect, and an estate in Scotland of more than 26,000 hectares. That year he also married Finnish actress and model Heini Wathen, with whom he had four children.
The purchase of Harrods, a symbol of British pride, was controversial from the start. Al-Fayed, who had worked for the mining group Lonrho in his early British years, managed to defeat that company in its takeover of House of Fraser, the parent company that owns the department store. The Egyptian businessman acquired more than 100 branches across the UK for a total of €842 million, as reported at the time. Roland Tiny Rowland, the British businessman at the helm of Lonrho who had for a time been a friend and confidant of Al-Fayed, accused him of lying to the British government and using Al-Fayed’s money to benefit his competitors defeat the Sultan of Brunei. A report by Britain’s Department of Trade and Industry concluded that Al-Fayed had not been truthful about his assets, business and financial interests, but he was allowed to remain the owner of Harrods, as he did for 25 years , until sold in 2010 Qatar stocks.
Friendship with Diana
The Egyptian businessman developed a friendly relationship with Lady Di through his philanthropic participation in many charity events sponsored by the British royal family. In the summer of 1997, Al-Fayed invited Diana and his two sons William and Harry to spend a few days on his yacht Jonikal off the coast of southern France to spend. There, Lady Di cemented her relationship with the tycoon’s son, Dodi, who dedicated himself to producing films and had achieved his first and only success 16 years earlier with the film Chariots of Fire.
Al-Fayed was involved in the 1994 scandal called “Cash for Questions”. Members of the British Parliament, in the control and interpellation sessions, asked the government specific questions about the interests of businessmen who were willing to pay them an equivalent amount of money. The Egyptian was one of those who managed to include his private business affairs in the debates in the House of Commons.
In November 2022, Forbes magazine estimated Al-Fayed’s fortune at around 2.2 billion euros.