First question is should he be in our Saudi Rich List? After much deliberation we believe so. Al Amoudi’s father is Hadhrami Yemeni and his mother is Ethiopian. He immigrated to Saudi Arabia in 1965 and became a Saudi citizen.

His wife is Sofia Saleh Al Amoudi who is a shareholder of Midroc Construction. He is said to be the largest foreign investor in both Sweden and Ethiopia. He holds an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from the Addis Ababa University and has been honoured with the Order of the Polar Star by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

Al Amoudi made his first fortune in construction and real estate before branching out into buying oil refineries in Morocco and Sweden — where he was honoured with the Royal Swedish Order of the North Star by King Carl XVI — and his native Ethiopia. Al Amoudi’s holding and operating companies, Corral Group and the Midroc Group, employ more than 40,000 people.

Corral Group has an investment portfolio in Europe and the Middle East that includes Preem Petroleum, the largest integrated petroleum firm in Sweden, Svenska Petroleum & Exploration, SAMIR, Naft Services Company (Saudi Arabia) and Fortuna Holdings (Lebanon).

Unlike many business tycoons in the Arab world, Al Amoudi generally keeps a very low profile. Clearly it works, as he is the fourth richest Arab in Saudi Arabia by our calculations.