NEW YORK - Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, nephew of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, has invested an additional dlrs 500 million in Citigroup Inc., the prince said Thursday.
Alwaleed, Citigroup's largest shareholder since 1991, said after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that he would invest about dlrs 1 billion in slumping U.S. and European shares.
The billionaire investor, who ranks 11th on Forbes's list of the richest people in the world, also has stakes in AOL Time Warner Inc. and Priceline.com Inc.
The latest investment by Alwaleed brings his total investment in Citigroup to more than dlrs 10 billion, or about 4 percent of the company.
Alwaleed said Thursday that Citigroup's shares were "at too attractive a price," prompting him to boost his investment in the New York-based financial-services giant.
Citigroup's shares dropped as low as dlrs 34.51 after the Sept. 11 attacks and recently traded only slightly above that level, at dlrs 37.52, down from the 52-week high of dlrs 52.50 set Jan. 7.
Wednesday, Citigroup reported a 15 percent rise in second-quarter earnings, boosted by growth in consumer credit-card, retail-banking and consumer-finance businesses.
Alwaleed, the 44-year-old chairman of Kingdom Holding Co., made headlines after the Sept. 11 attacks when he handed a dlrs 10 million check to New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani following a visit to the site of the World Trade Center.
However, the Saudi prince also suggested that the United States take a more balanced approach toward the Palestinian cause, and Giuliani returned the check.
In afternoon trading, shares of Citigroup changed hands at dlrs 37.74, up 81 cents, or 2.2 percent, on the New York Stock Exchange ( news - web sites
Boy, can this guy pick 'em, or what?
And here I thought they set up our bubble. Interesting. We all know Enron was a front company for Uncle Sam to pump $$ into sympathetic regimes around the world (stop right there, I never said it was bad). Perhaps our Uncle was using Enron to sucker C into a morass knowing if C goes, a lot of Sheik money comes back to our shores. Nice touch. Markets will puke their guts, but nice touch.