Four years after he pulled out of a multi-million dollar project to construct a five-star hotel in Kampala, Saudi Arabian billionaire, Prince Al Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, is seeking new investment opportunities in Uganda.
Prince Al-Waleed, a member of the royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is the chief executive officer of Kingdom Holdings Company (KHC), the company that was supposed to put up the hotel at the former Shimoni Teachers’ College in 2006.
The company pulled out of the hotel construction after it recorded a net loss of $8.26 billion in the last quarter of 2008. According to a statement issued by the Ugandan ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Dr Rashid Yahya Ssemuddu, Al Waleed is now seeking new investment opportunities in the banking sector, hotels, real estate, media, broadcasting, entertainment information technology, telecommunications, health and education.
“He [Al-Waleed] is scheduled to visit Uganda in February 2014, and the visit is aimed at exploring investment opportunities, areas of cooperation in development as well as humanitarian support,” Dr Ssemuddu said in an email to The Observer.
“Uganda needs business groups like Kingdom Holdings Company to invest in key areas of the economy that would generate good returns on their investments while helping to spur economic growth, create jobs and transfer technology among the key expected benefits,” he said.
Dr Ssemuddu, currently on a tour-of-duty to the countries of Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen, where he serves as Uganda’s non-resident ambassador, met Al Waleed at his office in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
Al Waleed was in March listed by Forbes as the 26th richest man in the world, with his net worth estimated at $20bn. Al Waleed, however, disputes Forbes’ valuation of his wealth, saying he is worth $26bn.
