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Mohamed Al Fayed
Wax statue of Mohamed Al Fayed
Born	January 27, 1933 (1933-01-27) (age 74) Alexandria, Egypt
Spouse	Heini Wathén

Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed (Arabic: محمد الفايد) (born January 27, 1933) is an Egyptian businessman and billionaire. He styles himself Mohamed Al Fayed, the al being Arabic for the definite article and equivalent to the German "von" or the French "de".^[1]

Mohamed Al Fayed is the owner of Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, the English Premiership football team Fulham Football Club and other business interests. He re-launched Punch in 1996, only to see it fold again in 2002.

He is married to Finnish socialite and former model Heini Wathén, and has four living children: Jasmine, (who has one child, Delilah), Karim, Camilla and Omar. A fifth child, Dodi from Al Fayed's first marriage died in a car crash in Paris, 1997 which also killed Diana, Princess of Wales and Henri Paul, the driver of the car and employee of the Fayed-owned Hôtel Ritz Paris.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Dodi Al Fayed's death 3 Fulham FC 4 Organizations owned or involved in 5 Books and television 6 Notes 7 External links

Born in Bakos (باكوس), a neighbourhood in eastern Alexandria, Egypt, as the eldest son of a primary school teacher, Al Fayed tried a number of jobs, from selling soft drinks on the streets of his home city as a child to working as a sewing machine salesman and teacher.

He was married two years to Samira Kashoggi, the sister of the international arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who employed him in his import business in Saudi Arabia. After establishing wide circles of influence in the UAE, Haiti, and London, Al Fayed founded his own shipping company in Egypt before becoming a financial adviser to one of the world's richest men, the Sultan of Brunei, in 1966.

He arrived in Britain in 1974 and added the al- to his name, earning the Private Eye nickname "the Phoney Pharaoh". He briefly joined the board of the mining conglomerate Lonrho in 1975. In 1985, he married Wathén, his second wife.

In 1979, Al Fayed bought the Hôtel Ritz Paris, and restored it to its former glory for which he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (Legion d’Honneur) by the then President of France, Francois Mitterand. In 1985, he and his brother Ali Al Fayed bought House of Fraser, a group that included the famous London store Harrods, for £615m. The Harrods deal was made under the nose of Roland 'Tiny' Rowland, the head of Lonrho. Rowland had been seeking to buy Harrods and took the Fayeds to a Department of Trade inquiry. The inquiry, involving one of the most bitter feuds in British business history, issued a 1990 report stating that the Fayed brothers had lied about their background and wealth. The bickering with Rowland continued when he accused them of stealing millions in jewels from his Harrods safe deposit box. Rowland died and without accepting responsibility Fayed settled the dispute with a payment to his widow. (Fayed had been arrested during the dispute and sued the Metropolitan Police for false arrest in 2002. He lost the case.)

In 1994, the House of Fraser went public, but Al Fayed retained private ownership of Harrods.

For years, Al Fayed has unsuccessfully sought British citizenship. Both Labour and Conservative Home Secretaries have repeatedly rejected his applications on the grounds that he is not of good character. He then took the matter to court, but failed.

Mohamed Al Fayed was involved in the cash for questions scandal, having offered the Conservative MPs Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith money for asking questions in Parliament. He provided MP Jonathan Aitken's bill from the Ritz Hotel in Paris to Peter Preston at The Guardian, thus destroying Aitken's libel case against the newspaper and resulting in a perjury conviction for Aitken.^[2]

Al Fayed's son, Dodi, was dating Diana, Princess of Wales both were killed in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997. Al Fayed has since made repeated allegations that the deaths were not accidental but rather the result of a wide-ranging conspiracy involving Prince Philip, MI5 and others, and Al Fayed has removed Harrod's Royal Warrants.^[3] Al Fayed has suggested that a cabal of British royalty and security officials could not stomach the possibility that Diana might bear a child to Dodi, and although there is no evidence that Diana, who had dated Dodi Fayed quite briefly before their deaths, had any plans to marry him, Al Fayed has persisted in claiming that she was pregnant with their child.^[4] A British police inquiry released Thursday December 14, 2006, concluded that Diana was not pregnant at the time of her death. The coroner conducting an inquest into the death of Princess Diana in October 2007 stated the inquiry is unlikely to reach a scientific conclusion on whether the Princess was pregnant at the time she died. He stated, "It is likely pregnancy is not a matter that can be proved one way or the other in scientific terms," because, while there were no visible signs of pregnancy, they are often not present at early stages of pregnancy. The coroner also agreed the body was illegally embalmed, since it was not approved by any of Diana's relatives.^[5]

In 1998, he helped found The New School at West Heath as a tribute to the late Diana, Princess of Wales, contributing almost £3 million GBP.

Al Fayed bought Second Division (equivalent to modern Football League One) Fulham F.C. from chairman Jimmy Hill in the summer of 1997. His initial, ambitious long-term aim was that Fulham would become a FA Premier League side within five years. To this end he installed the managerial "dream team" of Ray Wilkins and Kevin Keegan, which resulted in the sacking of Micky Adams, who had guided Fulham to promotion from the then named Third Division.

Fulham stormed to the Second Division title with a record 101 points in 1999. Kevin Keegan was appointed manager of England at this time. In 2001, Fulham took the First Division (now Football League Championship) under manager Jean Tigana, winning 100 points and scoring over 100 goals in the season. This meant that Al Fayed had achieved his objective of Fulham being a Premiership club a year ahead of schedule.

Al Fayed stated that he wanted Fulham to become the "Manchester United of the South", referring to United's rise in the 1990s to being one of the biggest clubs in the world. Fulham fans were just grateful a Chairman was not looking to make a profit on the much coveted real estate that Craven Cottage occupied. Al Fayed invested £30 million in transfers, but Fulham finished a disappointing 13th. Since the disappointing signing of Steve Marlet for £12 million, Al Fayed grew wary of how wasteful spending money on average players. Tigana was replaced by Chris Coleman and subsequently Lawrie Sanchez, who have done well to keep Fulham in the Premiership despite relatively low player budgets.

On the 5th May 2007, Al Fayed celebrated his 10th year with Fulham. This was marked by a 1-0 win over Liverpool, which ensured that the club retained their Premiership status for another season.

In 2003, Al Fayed moved from Surrey, UK to Switzerland, alleging a breach in an agreement with the Her Majesty's Inland Revenue Commissioners. In January 2005, a Geneva newspaper stated that Al Fayed had moved again, to Monaco, to take advantage of a more favourable tax climate. Fayed is now thought to carry a UAE passport and has given up any claim upon British citizenship.

Al Fayed has an estimated fortune of between $38.8 billion and $53.3 billion, although there are many ongoing discussions on this subject.

• Harrods, Knightsbridge
• Fulham Football Club
• The Hôtel Ritz Paris
• Balnagown Estate (a retreat in the Scottish Highlands)
• Harrods Estates (property management company)
• Punch magazine
• Air Harrods (private helicopter service)
• Harrods Aviation (private aircraft management)
• Harrods 102
• Hyde Park Residence (luxury rental properties)
• HJW GeoSpatial (geospatial / a U.S. mapping company)^[6]

• Fayed: The Unauthorized Biography by Tom Bower portrays Al Fayed as a compulsive liar and inept social climber.
• Mahmoud El-Masry, a fictionalized TV series based on Mohamed Al Fayed's life, aired November 2004 simultaneously across Arabic-language satellite TV stations during the Ramadan month prime-time.
• A 2005 television documentary made by Keith Allen, entitled, You're Fayed! included an extensive interview about Al Fayed's views on the British Royal Family, Diana, Princess of Wales, Harrods, and his lifestyle.
• Al-Fayed appeared on the popular UK based Channel 4 Da Ali G Show in which he and 'Ali' freestyled a "tongue-in-cheek" rap on the topic of theft from Harrods, parodying the song "Can I kick it" by A Tribe Called Quest into "Can I nick it".
• Al-Fayed briefly appeared in an episode of Being Bobby Brown in which he gave Bobby Brown an aphrodisiac he called "Egyptian Viagra".^[7]
• Al-Fayed appeared in an episode of Dream Team, where he petitioned to have the Harchester Dragons play their final match against Everton.
• Al-Fayed donated the use of one of his helicopters for a special of Challenge Anneka in 2007. The helicopter was used to transport some sick children to a choir performance, for a musical album, which the show was challenged to produce in just five days.
• Al-Fayed is featured in the 2007 television docudrama Diana: Last Days of a Princess. In addition to being portrayed by actor Nadim Sawalha, he appears as himself in interview segments interspersed with scripted scenes.
• Al-Fayed appeared on the The Howard Stern Show March 6, 2007, He showed his usual conviction and spoke about his theories surrounding the death of Dodi and Diana, but was also notably warm and comfortable on the air, going so far as to playfully refer to Stern as a "dickhead". Steve Langford, a member of the Stern Show's news department (who had been a journalist covering the death of Diana for Hard Copy in 1997) also took the opportunity to ask Al-Fayed some questions on-air regarding the night Dodi and Diana died.

• Al Fayed on CBC
• Interview with Al Jazeera (English) Riz Khan
• Mohamed Al Fayed's personal website
• Mohamed Al Fayed interview by Richard Quest
• Al-Fayed Charitable Foundation
• Download: Lord Stevens' 832-page Operation Paget Report Into The Deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, Dodi Al Fayed & Henri Paul 14th December, 2006]
• Notes from the Howard Stern Show - March 6, 2007
• Coroner's Inquests into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed