A statement from Prince Alwaleed’s office on Tuesday stated that the suit against Forbes and had been settled “on mutually agreeable terms”. The Prince, whose Kingdom Holding holds stakes in high-profile Western investments including Twitter to Citigroup, and London’s Savoy Hotel, filed a defamation suit against Forbes in London in 2013.
That year Forbes estimated his net worth at $20 billion in it’s “definitive” billionaires list. Alwaleed took great offence at this, and argued that the magazine had undervalued his Kingdom Holding by not using the full market price of its shares, and had implied the company was not transparent in its finances.
Alwaleed said because of the Saudi market opening up to foreign investment, that Forbes was now more comfortable with using Kingdom Holding’s actual market price in valuing his net worth. He did not elaborate on the details of the settlement.
