View source for Mohamed Al-Fayed

== Career in Dubai ==
Ingratiating himself in London's Arab expatriate community, Al-Fayed met an Iraqi businessman, Salim Abu Alwan, and through Alwan was introduced to [[Mahdi Al Tajir]].<ref name="Bower 1998, p.27">Bower 1998, p.27.</ref> Tajir was then an adviser to Sheikh [[Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum]] of the United Arab Emirates. Rashid was the Emir of [[Dubai]], and oil was soon to be discovered in Dubai, which would transform the wealth of the emirate.

Tajir informed Al-Fayed that Dubai was penniless and needed to borrow £1 million to build modern harbour facilities.<ref>Bower 1998, p.31.</ref> Al-Fayed secured a loan of £9 million from Imre Rochlitz, an American lawyer. Rochlitz's Jewish ancestry caused embarrassment to Tajir, and later caused Rochlitz to reject Al-Fayed's offer of a formal partnership.<ref>Bower 1998, p.33.</ref> Al-Fayed earned £1.5 million commission from the contract for British engineering company [[Costain Group|Costain]] to carry out the work to the port. Al-Fayed also assisted in securing finance for the [[Dubai World Trade Centre]]. The banker [[David Douglas-Home]] of [[Morgan Grenfell]] was responsible for managing the contract.<ref>Bower 1998, p.36.</ref> By the mid-1970s Costain had gained over £280 million of contracts thanks to Al-Fayed and Tajir, and Al-Fayed bought 20.84% of Costain's shares. He was later appointed a company director.<ref>Bower 1998, p.50.</ref>

With his earnings from commissions on various projects in Dubai, Al-Fayed bought a Rolls-Royce, a large chalet in [[Gstaad]], and the remaining apartments of 60 [[Park Lane]] in [[Mayfair]], where he had been living for the past few years.<ref name="Bower 1998, p.39">Bower 1998, p.39.</ref>

In 1974 Al-Fayed met [[Tiny Rowland|Roland 'Tiny' Rowland]], a British businessman with extensive interests in Southern Africa, and the chairman of international conglomerate [[Lonrho]]. Fayed's complex professional relationship with Rowland dominated his life for the next twenty years, with legal repercussions continuing into the late 1990s.

Rowland persuaded Al-Fayed to exchange his shares in Costain for 5.5 million shares in Lonrho in March 1975, and Al-Fayed used the profit from the deal to buy another 3 million shares in Lonrho and become a director of the company.<ref>Bower 1998, p.55.</ref> Al-Fayed soon became alarmed at Rowland's use of Lonrho's money to fund his lifestyle and to pay large bribes in Africa, as well as his syphoning off company profits into a secret bank account in Switzerland.<ref>Bower 1998, p.56.</ref>

The British [[Department of Trade and Industry (United Kingdom)|Department of Trade and Industry]] began to investigate Lonrho in early 1976, and an alarmed Al-Fayed quit the company in May 1976. He sold his Lonrho shares to Kuwaiti investors and bought back his Costain shares for £11 million.<ref>Bower 1998, p.57.</ref> Tajir's influence in Dubai was waning by 1977, and Al-Fayed was excluded from the commission process for a new aluminium smelter, and the development of [[Jebel Ali]], putting Costain's future profits at risk.<ref>Bower 1998, p.71.</ref>

In 1993 Al-Fayed was visited at Harrods by [[Mohammed Alabbar]], the director of Dubai's Department of Economic Development.<ref>Bower 1998, p.302.</ref> Alabbar had been appointed by Sheikh Maktoum to eradicate the system of large commission payments from previous decades. Tajir was challenged in the British courts to repay his alleged excessive profits earned from the construction of Dubai's aluminium smelter, and Al-Fayed was targeted over his management contract of the Dubai World Trade Centre. Al-Fayed's contract to manage the centre was later terminated by the Maktoums, and Al-Fayed sued them for compensation estimated between £30 to 90 million.<ref>Bower 1998, p.342.</ref> The case came to court in October 1994, and after trying to unsuccessfully settle the case with the Maktoums, Al-Fayed was due to testify on 17 October. Al-Fayed's lawyer informed the court that morning that he had been taken seriously ill with neck and back complications, and could not fly to Dubai as a result.<ref>Bower 1998, p.343.</ref>

Alabbar had secretly taped Al-Fayed on his way to Harrods that morning, and the tapes were shown to the court the next day. Al-Fayed's lack of ill health was evident, and Al-Fayed was informed by his lawyer of the disastrous effect that his deception had on the case that day.<ref>Bower 1998, p.345.</ref>

In the mid-1960s, he met the ruler of Dubai, [[Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum]], who entrusted him with helping transform Dubai, where he set up IMS (International Marine Services) in 1968.<ref>{{cite book|last=Salihovic |first=Elnur |title=Major Players in the Muslim Business World |url={{GBurl|aSa1DAAAQBAJ|page=117}} |date=5 October 2015|publisher=Universal Publishers |isbn=9781627340526 |pages=117–118}}</ref> Fayed introduced British companies including the Costain Group (of which he became a director and 30% [[shareholder]]<ref name="Independent20071006">{{cite news |last=Vallely |first=Paul |date=6 October 2007 |title=Mohamed al-Fayed: The outsider |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/mohamed-alfayed-the-outsider-396133.html |url-access=registration |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220515/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/mohamed-alfayed-the-outsider-396133.html |archive-date=15 May 2022 |access-date=26 February 2013 |newspaper=[[The Independent]]}}</ref>), [[Bernard Sunley & Sons]], and [[Taylor Woodrow]] to the emirate to carry out construction work.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/08/business/harrod-s-new-owner-mohamed-al-fayed-a-quiet-acquisitor-is-caught-in-a-cross-fire.html |title=Harrod's New Owner: Mohamed Al-Fayed; a Quiet Acquisitor Is Caught in a Cross Fire |last=Feder |first=Barnaby J. |date=8 September 1985 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=25 January 2018 |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=26 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180126070914/http://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/08/business/harrod-s-new-owner-mohamed-al-fayed-a-quiet-acquisitor-is-caught-in-a-cross-fire.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Times20100510"/>

===Relationship with the Sultan of Brunei===

Al-Fayed became a financial adviser to the then [[Sultan of Brunei]] [[Omar Ali Saifuddien III]] in 1966.<ref name="Independent20071006" /> Al-Fayed told [[Maureen Orth]] that he had known [[Hassanal Bolkiah]], who succeeded Saifuddien on his abdication, since the Sultan's childhood and that they had met during the building of a trade centre in Brunei.<ref name="maureen-orth" /> Tiny Rowland told DTI inspectors that Al-Fayed had told him that he negotiated an introduction to the sultan for $500,000 plus a percentage of any resulting business with an Indian holy man and alleged fraudster, [[Chandraswami|Shri Chandra Swamiji Maharaj]].<ref name="maureen-orth" /> Rowland later admitted this account was untrue.<ref>Bower 1998, p.164.</ref>

In mid-1984 Al-Fayed received several powers of attorney and written authorisations from the Sultan to carry out tasks for him. These gave Al-Fayed access to large sums of the sultan's money. The Sultan was then the richest man in the world.<ref name="maureen-orth" /> During this period, the bank of the three Fayed brothers, the [[Royal Bank of Scotland]], received a transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars from Switzerland into their accounts.<ref name="maureen-orth" />  RBS assumed that the money belonged to the Sultan, but Al-Fayed told the bank that his portfolio was separate from the Sultan's. The DTI report noted that "It may be no more than coincidence that this vast increase in disposable wealth followed quickly on the admission of Mohamed to the Sultan's confidence ... It is, however, a very powerful coincidence."<ref name="maureen-orth" />

Using a power of attorney, Al-Fayed bought the [[Dorchester Hotel]] for the Sultan in 1985.<ref name="maureen-orth" /> Al-Fayed accompanied the Sultan to [[10 Downing Street]] to visit Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] in January 1985, with [[pound sterling|sterling]] in decline and threatening the economy.<ref name="maureen-orth" /> The Sultan, who had moved £5 billion of assets out of pounds, moved the assets back into sterling. Al-Fayed took credit for this and for persuading the Sultan to give half a billion pounds of contracts to British defence industries.<ref name="maureen-orth" />