THE LAST YEAR was once again far from quiet for the billionaire chairman of Kingdom Holding. Calling out Saudi Arabia’s finance ministry for creating a fiscal deficit in a letter to his late uncle King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, describing women’s right in the kingdom as having “regressed since the time of the Prophet”, and emerging successful over Forbes in a key libel decision following allegations of stock price manipulation and defaulting on contracts were just some of the reasons the prince made headlines in 2014. Since establishing Kingdom Holding in 1979, he has amassed a fortune standing at between $21.2 billion and $28.1 billion, according to different estimates, through investments in the likes of Citibank, Movenpick Hotels, Walt Disney, Apple Inc, News Corp, Twitter and PepsiCo. The prince sought to further enhance his interests last year through the sale of Kingdom Holding’s stake in Movenpick Hotel and Apartments Bur Dubai and a joint venture established with PineBridge to invest in Africa. He also saw his 2.5 per cent investment in Jingdong Inc. increase in value by 130 per cent when the company began trading in May and Kingdom Holding had a promising Q3, with net profit rising 20.5 per cent to $70.6 million. This month the prince could also be making headlines of a different form with the expected launch of his Alarab 24 hour news channel.