Kingdom Holding Company (Arabic: شركة المملكة القابضة) is a public holding company headquartered in Kingdom Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is controlled by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, and is headquartered in the city of Riyadh. The company is publicly listed in the Saudi Stock Exchange, but only 6% of the shares are public, the remaining 94% being owned by Prince Alwaleed.
The company describes itself as a diversified investment company, whose interests include banking, real estate, telecommunications, broadcasting and media, entertainment, hospitality, computers and electronics, agriculture, restaurants, upscale fashion, retailing, supermarkets, tourism, travel and automotive manufacturing.
Its international investments include (or have included)
- Amazon
- AOL/Time Warner
- Apple Inc.
- Canary Wharf
- Citigroup
- Coca Cola
- Compaq
- Disneyland Paris
- eBay
- Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts
- Fairmont Hotels and Resorts
- Ford
- Hotel George V, Paris
- Hewlett-Packard
- McDonald's
- Motorola
- Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts
- News Corporation
- PepsiCo
- Priceline.com Inc
- Procter & Gamble
- The Walt Disney Company
- LBC
- SAMBA, Saudi American Bank
- Rotana Group (Arabic: روتانا), the Arab World's largest entertainment company
- Kingdom Hotels International, public company listed on the Dubai International Financial Exchange
The company is known for hiring in 2004 Captain Hanadi Zakaria al-Hindi, the first Saudi female commercial pilot, who trained at the Mideast Aviation Academy in Jordan.
It is also the owner of the Kingdom Centre.
In July 2005, Kingdom announced a joint venture with HSBC to invest in growth companies in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2007 the company committed to purchasing an Airbus A380 "Flying Palace" for $485 million
In April 2010, the company sold its stake in Raffles Holdings International in a deal worth about $847 million.
In August 2011, the company announced plans for the construction of Kingdom Tower, which will become the tallest building in the world.
Famous quotes containing the words kingdom, holding and/or company:
“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”
—Bible: New Testament, Mark 10:14.
Jesus.
“But it is the same thing we are all seeing,
Our world. Go after it,
Go get it boy, says the man holding the stick.
Eat, says the hunger, and we plunge blindly in again,
Into the chamber behind the thought.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“We’re too unseparate. And going home
From company means coming to our senses.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)