Saudi sovereign wealth fund chief Yasser Al Rumayyan chatting with
the President-elect during a United Fighting Championship event at
Madison Square Garden last Saturday 16 November
Yasser al-Rumayyan holds multiple prominent roles in the Saudi
regime, including chairing Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant, and
Maaden, the country's largest mining company. He also serves as chairman
of the English Premier League's Newcastle United Football Club and LIV Golf.
His meteoric rise to power is based entirely on his deep personal
relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with whom he has
worked closely since they first met in 2015 when MbS summoned
al-Rumayyan to the Royal Court to run the newly established Decision Support Center.
While al-Rumayyan had previously held some senior posts in banking,
thus began a dizzying rise to the heights of power as one of MbS’s most
trusted economic advisors.
Besides his loyalty and ability to manage the crown prince’s unpredictable schedule,
what MbS likes most about al-Rumayyan is his extremely liberal
lifestyle and complete disregard for Islam. Al-Rumayyan is the most
westernised of MbS’s inner circle, he speaks good English and is even
comfortable wearing shorts something highly unusual among Saudi men.
This is because his mother was Syrian and his father a Saudi officer, so
while he was growing up he and his brothers had full access to the US
Sports Academy on the airbase in Riyadh where he could try out all the
sports and fully immerse himself in US culture.
A very fit and muscular man, al-Rumayyan enjoys tennis, swimming,
volleyball, basketball, running and squash. He like Trump is said to
share a passion for golf which he took up playing in 2008. His other
main hobbies are parties and socialising and he has reportedly had
several high profile girlfriends although he is married.
Despite being Chairman of Saudi Aramco al-Rumayyan has no background
or experience in the oil sector and minimal academic credentials. He
holds only a certificate in accounting from King Faisal University and
though he likes to describe himself as a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s General Management Program, the programme involves just seven weeks of study.
When it comes to business al-Rumayyan has a reputation as an abrasive
manager whose nickname is “Yessir” and preferred title is “Your
Excellency.” MbS likes his style and uses him as his financial
trouble-shooter, such as when in September 2019 he stripped Khalid A.
al-Falih of his duties as Saudi Aramco Chairman and appointed
al-Rumayyan in his place to take charge of the company’s IPO float.
Although al-Rumayyan enjoys the spotlight and has a very high media
profile he avoids unscripted occasions and rarely gives interviews. In
2022 he gave his first and last long interview in Saudi regime media in which he inadvertently spilled the beans on how the PIF is actually run.
In the interview he begins by explaining at length how all the PIF’s
investment decisions are always made according to the highest standards
and only after close scrutiny and majority decision by the board and all
the relevant committees.
Then he completely contradicts everything he has just said by citing a
specific example of an international investment decision in 2020 which
the entire board opposed except himself and the PIF chairman MbS. The
matter was referred to King Salman who overruled the board allowing the
investment to go ahead.
“It is possible in disagreements for things to reach such a level and
that's one of the qualities that isn't present anywhere else in the
world” Al Rumayyan says in the interview, without irony.
He continues:
There are many examples available where His Highness, the
Chairman, has a certain opinion, saying that we need to do this or avoid
that. He has a particular vision or some information on a particular
matter. Once we show him the evidence, he may change his mind. Sometimes
it does not happen, but most of the time, he changes his mind because
we showed him the evidence stating that this is a good investment
decision or not and he will take the opinions of the people available
from the board and executive management.
Al-Rumayyan then gives further information about how some of those investment decisions are made:
A mandate came from the prince that we want to invest in
France... The next day, at 6am we were on a plane going to France, Turki
(Alnowaiser, PIF Deputy Governor and Head of the International
Investments Division), Yazid (al-Humaid, PIF Deputy Governor and the
Head of MENA Investments) and me.
And on a separate occasion:
We were on a visit with His Highness, the Crown Prince, in China
and then we came to Japan and I talked to the prince. I have this guy (Masayoshi Son) who I met before and I met him in Tokyo. I
was sitting and talking. Apparently he (MbS) was wearing headphones,
and he heard what we were saying. If you (Son) don't mind seeing him? He
said, ‘Okay, great’. So he came and saw him, and the prince said,
‘okay, is 45 billion what you want? We'll invest it’. Why did the prince
say this? Because of the vision.
Besides making big deals at the direction of MbS, al-Rumayyan’s other
important function is funnelling large sums from the Saudi public purse
into personal accounts belonging to MbS and his clan including his
brothers, Turki, Khaled, Nayif, Bandar, and Rakan.
The Saudi public purse has three main sources of revenue: oil money;
national savings in the form of US bonds and other investments; and
borrowing on international markets. Revenue also comes from the proceeds
of the confiscated assets from royal family members and wealthy
businessmen, as well as from new taxes and rises in the cost of services
and utilities. Al-Rumayyan’s job is to ensure large sums from all this
is diverted into private accounts belonging to MbS and his clan and he was made Chairman of Aramco in order to keep everything under one umbrella and make this process more efficient.
Despite his centrality to MbS’s current financial architecture,
al-Rumayyan is replaceable and just as the crown prince created him he
could easily dispose of his moneyman should he fail to meet
expectations. According to Vision 2030 the PIF is supposed to be worth nearly US$ 3 trillion in five years time but currently sits at less than US$ 1 trillion. So when 2030 actually arrives al-Rumayyan’s glittering career may come to a jarring halt, if indeed he lasts that long.
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