Fifty-one year-old Prince Alwaleed, a nephew of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, has long guarded a glittering investment portfolio which includes stakes in dozens of blue-chip companies, including Citigroup in which he owns a 4.3% stake worth approximately US$10bn Apple Computer, Canary Wharf, and Disneyland Paris. The Prince is the largest individual foreign investor in the US and via his 5.46% stake in News Corp., he is almost certainly the worlds most influential Arab businessman. He also owns many other companies in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Gulf.

Earlier this year Prince Alwaleed floated 25% of his Kingdom Hotels Investments in London and Dubai giving the hospitality company a US$1.6bn market capitalisation, although the order book was 14 times oversubscribed and raised around US$6bn in demand. Now the Prince says he is ready to list his main investment vehicle, Kingdom Holding Company (KHC). The listing is being planned by US investment bank Citigroup and Saudi Arabias SAMBA, and around 30% of KHC will be floated on the Saudi bourse. This is expected to raise around US$7bn which would be by far the biggest flotation the Gulf has ever witnessed.

While often praised for savvy acquisitions abroad over the years, the Prince has also been criticised for not dumping poor performing stocks at the right time. None of this worries the self-described long-term investor, who points out that his record shows he has always stuck to what he believes in. He says: With a big portfolio like this there is no way that all the companies will be all right.

The planned initial public offering (IPO) of KHC has raised speculation that the prince may be gearing up to make another major investment, and that he needs to raise cash for it. Speculators have good reason to believe this maybe the case: If Im going to do something, I do it spectacularly or I dont do it at all, he has said many times in the past. This summer Prince Alwaleed announced that he intends to spend US$2bn buying a 2.7% stake in the Industry and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the countrys largest commercial lender.

He had earlier bought US$390m worth of shares of Bank of China, the countrys second-largest bank. This year Prince Alwaleed also bought Fairmont Resorts & Hotels Inc. and, together with Colony Capita, used the assets to create the new Fairmont Raffles brand. He already owned a stake in the Fairmont Palm Hotel in Dubai. He is also expanding the Mvenpick hotel chain, in which he has a 27% stake, in Saudi Arabia.