There was some debate as to whether the hugely diverse business owned by Prince Alwaleed should be included in this list at all. After all, there will not be many other competitors with significant shareholdings in a diverse range of businesses such as Apple, Citi, News Corp and Time Warner.

However, the company remains as a major investor in property – not least the 1km-high Kingdom Tower planned for Jeddah, which is set to be the world’s tallest building. The $15bn project was announced last year through a venture called Jeddah Economic City, in which Kingdom Holding is a partner. It has already appointed privately-owned contractor Saudi Binladin Group to build the super-tall tower, which is set to include malls, hotels and apartments.

Kingdom Holding also owns the sprawling Kingdom Centre in Riyadh, which contains the 94,320m2 Al-Mamlaka shopping mall, and it is planning sprawling schemes in Jeddah and Riyadh worth $5.3bn and $14.66bn respectively. The schemes will see almost 19million square metres of land developed in projects that will house thousands of people, as well as containing resorts, hotels, education campuses and commercial properties.