Middle Eastern investors have been buying up British assets for many years. Photo: Yasser Al-Zayat/AFP
Private jets will fill the skies. over Riyadh this week as around 6,000 of the world's leading financiers, executives, investors, politicians and influencers descend on the Saudi capital.
Some will pay up to $15,000 (£12,000) ) for the Future Investment Initiative, an international discussion known as “Davos in the Desert.”
People like BlackRock philanthropy high priest Larry Fink and superstar Wall Street banker Jamie Dimon will rub shoulders with each other shoulder to shoulder with a friend. with India's richest man Mukesh Ambani and the head of Saudi Arabia's $650 billion sovereign wealth fund Yasser al-Rumayyan.
However, while the world's elite are weighed down by the five-star comfort of the city's top hotels, the UN has warned that Gaza is running out of water, while in Israel some families still don't know what happened to some of their families . members were dragged from their homes by Hamas terrorists.
Rishi Sunak meets Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh before attending Davos desert” Photo: Simon Walker/10 Downing Street
While some leaders have privately expressed discomfort with Riyadh's apparent blaming of Israel for the conflict, the shadow of a war that has already claimed thousands of lives is unlikely to prompt a boycott of the annual holiday.
Few would be willing to embarrass Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at home as the kingdom spearheads an extraordinary surge in overseas spending from Gulf countries.
However, dealmakers in Britain quietly acknowledge that the geopolitical earthquake in the Middle East has changed the atmosphere at home. The big question City financiers are asking is whether it has now become more difficult for the West to continue doing business with the region, especially the Qatari regime, which is now tainted by ties to Hamas.
The change in mood can already be felt in Westminster. Following the Hamas atrocities, Rishi Sunak faced calls to impose sanctions on Qatar after it emerged that the terror group's leaders who carried out the massacres had been living in luxury in Doha for the past seven years.
Images of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh looking on and celebrating from the safety of his office in Qatar the worst attack Israel has ever suffered was met with widespread disgust. The speed with which Qatar blamed Israel for the massacre was also alarming.
Others wonder how long the duplicity of the Qatari regime, which is accused of providing $30 million in cash a month to Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip, will last. on the one hand, positioning itself as a strong ally of the West, on the other – it can continue.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh meets with the minister Foreign Affairs of Iran Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Doha. Photo: Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs/AFP < p>Meanwhile, it has emerged that the former prime minister of Qatar has been accused of anti-Semitism by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington think tank. In an interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani said: “Imagine that oil [were sold] by some Jews… what would be the price of a barrel of oil?
This is a far cry from a week ago, when al-Thani's son was firmly in the running to buy Manchester United.
Mark Wallace, the former US ambassador to the UN, called for a freeze on assets linked to the Qatari state and royal family “until the Qataris hand over the worst of the worst terrorist leaders in the world.”
Wallace, who is now runs a US-based counter-extremism project and called for a suspension of UK diplomatic relations with Doha if the regime fails to apprehend Haniyeh and hand him over to US or Israeli authorities.
This seems unlikely. “The UK and its allies have a strong relationship with Qatar,” the Foreign Office said in response to Wallace’s demands. As winter approaches, Whitehall will be acutely aware that Britain has become dependent on Qatari liquefied natural gas supplies.
But concern is growing nonetheless. Bob Blackman, co-secretary of the 1922 Conservative Committee and deputy chairman of the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism, said he agreed with Wallace.
Former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim, accused of anti-Semitism. Photo: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg
In a House of Commons debate on Monday, senior Labor MP Chris Bryant asked the prime minister if it was time to say “a few tough words with Qatar”? Other senior MPs are believed to privately share the same concerns.
This will be extremely inconvenient for both the government and big business. Middle Eastern investors have been snapping up British assets for years. Until Hamas attacked, it seemed like it would continue. Gulf states are awash in sky-high oil and gas prices and are seeking to increase their influence abroad, while Western leaders need all the help they can get as they seek to pull their economies out of the quagmire.
The state of Qatar alone, excluding the personal holdings of individual members of the royal family, is the 10th largest landowner in the UK, according to analysts at MSCI Real Assets. The emirate owns almost 2.1 million square meters (23 million square feet) of property in the UK, ranging from prestigious London hotels such as the Ritz, Savoy and Berkeley to multi-billion-dollar complexes such as the Shard Tower and Chelsea Barracks and tall buildings. – end of retail trade. In 2010, the investment arm of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund bought Harrods for £1.5 billion for Harrods. The total value of Qatar's property empire is estimated to be around £10 billion.
The area in Mayfair has been nicknamed “Little Doha” due to the concentration of houses and offices owned by Qataris. Among the dozens of luxury properties owned by the Qatari royal family is Forbes House, a 19th-century Grade II listed mansion that Hamad bin Jassim plans to transform into Britain's first £300 million home. The hotel will have 25 bedrooms, two swimming pools, a spa, sauna, Turkish bath, gym, private cinema, beauty and treatment room.
The state also bought large stakes in Barclays and Sainsbury's banks and the International Airlines Group, parent company of British Airways, and vital infrastructure such as Heathrow, Thames Water and the National Grid gas network.
Ten years ago, when the Qatari shopping spree was in full swing, the Daily Mail published an article with the headline: “How Qatar bought Britain.” Will events in the Middle East lead to a sudden halt to his significant overseas spending?
“Their involvement in global finance is so great that it will be difficult to relax quickly about the frustration it could cause,” warns a senior City official.
< p>Others say Qatar could end up playing a major role in negotiations, especially when it comes to the release of Israeli hostages, but not everyone is convinced. “The Qataris play a huge balancing role here,” warned a City source.
However, for any investment banker or large private equity firm “wanting investment committee approval for something financed by Qatari money, it will be quite difficult,” the same person says. “There are areas you can invest in where the rules and controls are much less strict, such as football, but otherwise it will be difficult.”
At the very least, deal activity will be “paused until the world figures out which direction things are going to go,” one corporate financier predicted. But if Israel starts to look “more embattled” and some of its regional neighbors side more forcefully with the Palestinians, then Gulf investments could quickly turn sour, he said.
Others don't like the temptation unite all the countries of the Middle East into one pile. Eastern states together. Attending the meeting in Riyadh this week will be a major test of whether that is happening.
A top adviser notes that dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered at the hands of a Saudi militia inside the kingdom's consulate. In Istanbul, international outrage soon subsided. “People have moved on” and will probably “hold their nose” again. In the end, “money talks,” says another.
But one veteran banker warned Qatar: “They need to clean up their act. They sheltered some barbarians, which did not benefit their situation at all. There is a way to do this before they become world statesmen, and it will require more than just buying a football club.”
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