The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.
TORONTO — “He has arrived.” As the hushed alert circulates in the lobby of Toronto’s Four Seasons Hotel, a dozen employees rush to their positions near doors and elevators.
No one pays attention to the procession of primped and perfumed Canadian authors, musicians and business leaders flowing through the first floor for the Writers’ Trust Gala.
Forget about author Joseph Boyden and Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie. The staff’s eyes are trained to a slight man in a trim grey wool suit making his way to the front door with an entourage of male attendants in dark jackets.
Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, the Saudi billionaire who invests in everything from Twitter to Disney, is visiting the recently built hotel, the newest addition to his collection of five-star pleasure palaces. His portfolio also includes London’s Savoy, the George V in Paris, and the Plaza in New York.
The 58-year-old nephew of Saudi King Abdullah made a name for himself as a maverick when he invested in Citibank in 1991 and made a killing by correctly betting the tottering bank would recover.
Now he is emerging as an activist in his home country with a rare public challenge to Saudi Arabia’s political elite, whom he believes are recklessly ignoring economic threats posed by shale oil discoveries in the United States.
The Prince makes this point repeatedly in an interview with The Globe and Mail, one of his first since he rattled global oil markets in July by disclosing on his Twitter account a letter to Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister. The missive warned that the American shale oil boom would soon threaten demand for crude from members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
New shale oil discoveries “are threats to any oil-producing country in the world,” he says.
Inside the Four Seasons, the Prince and his handlers nudge their way through the hotel’s packed street-level “dbar” (a nod to chef Daniel Boulud) to a raised dais of taupe couches and chairs at the end of the lounge.
Signalling his comfort in Western society, the Prince juggles his prayer beads and Android phone while conducting business in the lobby bar. This is his custom, an adviser whispers – the Prince likes to make himself visible when spending time at his five-star resorts.
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