A French intelligence website has revealed the secrets of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s restructuring of influential families in the Kingdom to enhance his powers and his complete exclusivity in governance.
Determined as ever to seal his future position as king, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been dishing out sovereign duties to families from the central region, the Nejd, and the east coast, Intelligence Online said in a new report.
In doing so, he is straying from the Sauds’ long-standing ties with the great families of the historic west coast, the Hejaz.
The French website pointed out that two great merchant families of the Middle East gathered in Dubai from 1 to 2 November for the private “From Family to Family” event.
The website identified the two families as Al-Muhaidib from Dammam, and Abu Nayan from Riyadh.
Emirati Al-Futtaim and the Kuwaiti Al-Ghanim families have also attended the event, organised by the Bahraini prince Abdulaziz bin Daij.
This comes as other families from central Saudi, the Nejd, and the east coast, selected and supported by MBS himself, have been expanding their grip on the country’s defense sector.
Alajlan family is one of the main families in the Kingdom which brought many international companies and foreign direct investments into the Kingdom, the Middle East and North Africa region.
In this regard, MBS has called on the Ajlan family to speed up Saudi defence industry’s development.
According to Intelligence Online, MBS has asked several of these families to help the Al Ajlan make the project a success.
Mohammed bin Salman is determined to speed up Saudi defence industry’s development, and has called on the Ajlan family, already well established in the Saudi industrial sector, for help.
The latter’s Scopa Industries are keen for French companies’ aid, despite its Washington-centred executive team.
The Saudi Arabian defence company Scopa Industries is tapping into French expertise through offshoots of the Saint-Etienne-based company Meta Productique.
Meanwhile, MBS continued to ignore other prominent families including the Bin Laden family (construction) and the Khashoggi family (royal advisors).
Additionally, MbS has turned ACWA Power into his energy transition arm, financed through its 44% shareholder, Saudi’s sovereign Public Fund which earlier announced that it has increased its ownership stake in ACWA Power from 33.36% to 50%.
Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power, which has grown to compete with Abu Dhabi’s Masdar (IO, 25/04/22) on the world stage, is actually led by Vision Invest, a joint venture between Al Muhaidib and Abu Nayan.
The Abunayyan are famous for being the Saudi partners of numerous major international groups in the fields of energy and industry, such as Siemens, Hyundai, Marubeni and Schneider Electric.
Maha Al Fozan, for one, has become the general counsel to the National Development Fund, an entity launched and run by MbS that oversees a dozen funds focused on diversifying the Saudi economic as part of his Vision 2030.
Another of the families loyal to the Crown Prince, the Al Rajhi, have secured political responsibilities after having built an economic, largely financial, empire.
Ahmed bin Sulaiman Al Rajhi, son of the family patriarch Sulaiman bin Abdulaziz Al Rajhi, has been the Minister of Human Resources and and Social Development since 2018.
Founded in 1957, Al Rajhi Bank is one of the largest banks in the world by market cap and the largest in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia, with total assets, with total assets of $146 billion.
This family has long been a financial support of the House of Saud and now, thanks to MbS, Al Rajhi family is also in charge of the kingdom’s food security.
