Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia discussed "potential business collaboration" with government officials and business leaders during a visit to Abu Dhabi last week.
The visit came at a critical time for Prince Alwaleed, who last week used part of his personal fortune to support Kingdom Holding, the publicly listed Saudi firm in which he holds a stake of 95 per cent.
Prince Alwaleed last Tuesday transferred the majority of his prize stake in the American banking giant Citigroup to Kingdom Holding, saying it would help the company "withstand the negative repercussions of the global economic crisis". Kingdom Holding also said it would reduce its share capital by almost half in an effort to increase its borrowing capacity and return to rising profits. The company reported a profit decline of 54 per cent in the third quarter of last year from the same period a year earlier as property markets stalled and returns on investments faltered.
Prince Alwaleed was listed as the 19th-richest person in the world by Forbes magazine in 2008 with a fortune of more than US$20 billion (Dh73.5bn).
Among the officials Prince Alwaleed met with on his trip to Abu Dhabi last Wednesday was Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Presidential Affairs and the chairman of the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC). Sheikh Mansour also owns the English Premier League club Manchester City and the Al-Jazira Sports and Cultural Club in Abu Dhabi.
Sheikh Mansour "warmly welcomed" the prince for discussions involving "local, regional and international economic and investment issues, and future potential business collaboration", the prince's statement said.
Both Sheikh Mansour and Prince Alwaleed have played a role in helping foreign banks weather the financial crisis. Sheikh Mansour made an investment of £2bn (Dh11.76bn) through IPIC in Barclays, the British bank, to shore up its balance sheet at the height of the financial crisis. That stake was sold last summer, reportedly for a profit of £1.5bn.
Prince Alwaleed has had a bumpier ride recently with Citigroup, which he first bought in 1991 and in which he is the largest individual shareholder. Citigroup shares have declined by more than 90 per cent since 2007, when they traded at more than $55 per share. Citigroup shares closed on Friday at $3.59.
In part because of the price declines, Citigroup is also in a dispute with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) in which the sovereign wealth fund claims an investment of $7.5bn in 2007 was misrepresented. There have been reports that ADAI is seeking damages of more than $4bn.
Prince Alwaleed also met with Khaldoon al Mubarak, the chief executive of Mubadala Development, Abu Dhabi's strategic investment arm. They discussed the prince's "solid regional presence in the various sectors, including real estate, hotels and media".
Prince Alwaleed owns numerous property, hospitality and media companies, including Rotana Media, which is said to be an investment target of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Rotana was one of the early partners in Abu Dhabi's media free zone.
Sheikh Mansour is also involved in the media through his ownership of I-Media, which launched the UAE's first Arabic-language daily financial newspaper last year.
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Tickets for the August 3 Fight Night, held in partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, went on sale earlier this month, through www.etihadarena.ae and www.ticketmaster.ae.
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Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Starring: Glenn Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos
Rating: 2.5/5
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Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
One in four Americans don't plan to retire
Nearly a quarter of Americans say they never plan to retire, according to a poll that suggests a disconnection between individuals' retirement plans and the realities of ageing in the workforce.
Experts say illness, injury, layoffs and caregiving responsibilities often force older workers to leave their jobs sooner than they'd like.
According to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research, 23 per cent of workers, including nearly two in 10 of those over 50, don't expect to stop working. Roughly another quarter of Americans say they will continue working beyond their 65th birthday.
According to government data, about one in five people 65 and older was working or actively looking for a job in June. The study surveyed 1,423 adults in February this year.
For many, money has a lot to do with the decision to keep working.
"The average retirement age that we see in the data has gone up a little bit, but it hasn't gone up that much," says Anqi Chen, assistant director of savings research at the Centre for Retirement Research at Boston College. "So people have to live in retirement much longer, and they may not have enough assets to support themselves in retirement."
When asked how financially comfortable they feel about retirement, 14 per cent of Americans under the age of 50 and 29 per cent over 50 say they feel extremely or very prepared, according to the poll. About another four in 10 older adults say they do feel somewhat prepared, while just about one-third feel unprepared.
"One of the things about thinking about never retiring is that you didn't save a whole lot of money," says Ronni Bennett, 78, who was pushed out of her job as a New York City-based website editor at 63.
She searched for work in the immediate aftermath of her layoff, a process she describes as akin to "banging my head against a wall." Finding Manhattan too expensive without a steady stream of income, she eventually moved to Portland, Maine. A few years later, she moved again, to Lake Oswego, Oregon. "Sometimes I fantasise that if I win the lottery, I'd go back to New York," says Ms Bennett.
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Director: Michael Sarnoski
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Revibe
Started: 2022
Founders: Hamza Iraqui and Abdessamad Ben Zakour
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Industry: Refurbished electronics
Funds raised so far: $10m
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: SmartCrowd
Started: 2018
Founder: Siddiq Farid and Musfique Ahmed
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech / PropTech
Initial investment: $650,000
Current number of staff: 35
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Various institutional investors and notable angel investors (500 MENA, Shurooq, Mada, Seedstar, Tricap)
Temple numbers
Expected completion: 2022
Height: 24 meters
Ground floor banquet hall: 370 square metres to accommodate about 750 people
Ground floor multipurpose hall: 92 square metres for up to 200 people
First floor main Prayer Hall: 465 square metres to hold 1,500 people at a time
First floor terrace areas: 2,30 square metres
Temple will be spread over 6,900 square metres
Structure includes two basements, ground and first floor
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THE BIO
Ms Al Ameri likes the variety of her job, and the daily environmental challenges she is presented with.
Regular contact with wildlife is the most appealing part of her role at the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi.
She loves to explore new destinations and lives by her motto of being a voice in the world, and not an echo.
She is the youngest of three children, and has a brother and sister.
Her favourite book, Moby Dick by Herman Melville helped inspire her towards a career exploring the natural world.
Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance: the specs
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Navdeep Suri, India's Ambassador to the UAE
There has been a longstanding need from the Indian community to have a religious premises where they can practise their beliefs. Currently there is a very, very small temple in Bur Dubai and the community has outgrown this. So this will be a major temple and open to all denominations and a place should reflect India’s diversity.
It fits so well into the UAE’s own commitment to tolerance and pluralism and coming in the year of tolerance gives it that extra dimension.
What we will see on April 20 is the foundation ceremony and we expect a pretty broad cross section of the Indian community to be present, both from the UAE and abroad. The Hindu group that is building the temple will have their holiest leader attending – and we expect very senior representation from the leadership of the UAE.
When the designs were taken to the leadership, there were two clear options. There was a New Jersey model with a rectangular structure with the temple recessed inside so it was not too visible from the outside and another was the Neasden temple in London with the spires in its classical shape. And they said: look we said we wanted a temple so it should look like a temple. So this should be a classical style temple in all its glory.
It is beautifully located - 30 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi and barely 45 minutes to Dubai so it serves the needs of both communities.
This is going to be the big temple where I expect people to come from across the country at major festivals and occasions.
It is hugely important – it will take a couple of years to complete given the scale. It is going to be remarkable and will contribute something not just to the landscape in terms of visual architecture but also to the ethos. Here will be a real representation of UAE’s pluralism.
Cry Macho
Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Dwight Yoakam
Rating:**