Saudi Royals Are Selling Homes, Yachts, & Art As Crown Prince Cuts Income

Saudi Arabia royals have sold more than $600 million worth of real estate, yachts, and artwork as they try to raise cash and avoid scrutiny since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tightened the ruling family’s purse strings

The transactions represent a radical change of fortune for senior princes who funneled windfalls from oil booms in the 1970s and 1980s into some of the world’s most exclusive markets. The vast sums of money were spent largely on hard-to-sell assets or drained by spending that reached $30 million a month for some royals with large staffs and lavish lifestyles, making them vulnerable to recent changes in government policy.

Now some members of the royal family are selling assets abroad to generate cash after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 36-year-old de facto ruler of the kingdom, dried up many of the sources of money they had used to support their extraordinary spending habits, he said. people close to the princes who make the sales.

The princes need cash to pay routine bills including property maintenance, taxes, staff salaries, and parking fees for their planes and ships, the people said. In some cases, the people said, they are also motivated by a desire to own less ostentatious assets to avoid drawing the attention of Prince Mohammed, who has restricted his privileges and access to state funds in the Al Saud family since his father took over. the throne. in 2015. The Saudi government is aware of the sales.

“These people do not work, they have a lot of staff and they are afraid of [Prince Mohammed]said a person familiar with the transactions. The princes, the person added, want “cash in their back pocket and no visible wealth.”

Among the assets recently sold are a $155 million British estate, two yachts over 200 feet long, and Mughal jewelry given as wedding gifts by a late king. The sellers, including the former ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan, were once among the most powerful people in Saudi Arabia.

“Clearly they have been reduced to a defined and disciplined regime and they have to live off that,” said British historian Robert Lacey, who has chronicled the Saudi ruling family since the 1980s. Prince Mohammed is “here for a long time.” term and is reshaping things for the long term.

A representative for Prince Bandar said he sold all his overseas assets “because he saw greater profits from investing in the kingdom with the incredible work the crown prince is doing and creating all the investment opportunities.”

Prince Mohammed has sidelined relatives seen as potential rivals, including an uncle and older cousin arrested in 2020, and cut benefits for thousands of royals, including paid holidays abroad or electricity bills. and water in their Saudi palaces. Such benefits had amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars in annual costs to the Saudi government.

Top royals amassed billions of dollars a year through oil and real estate sales, as well as business deals involving the government, from which Prince Mohammed has gradually pushed them away. The government is squeezing members of the royal family in other ways, launching a $2,500 tax on every domestic worker beyond the fourth employee this year, costing some royals hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

US diplomatic cables from the 1990s released by WikiLeaks show that some royals used to build wealth by taking loans from local banks without paying them back, expropriating land from commoners, or exploiting the foreign worker visa system for profit. People familiar with royal finances say the princes continued to benefit from such schemes until Prince Mohammed came to power. A system of stipends for thousands of Saudi princes, which US cables say cost the government billions of dollars a year, remains intact according to one of those people.

Many princes have adjusted their lifestyle due to changes in the global economy and changes within Saudi Arabia that have “turned off the taps,” according to this person.

“They had a standard of living that exceeded any expectations,” said another person familiar with the transactions. “The expense is out of this world. It takes time for them to adjust.”

The Saudi Media Ministry did not respond to questions about the finances of members of the royal family.

Some of the Saudis currently liquidating assets were temporarily detained at Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton hotel in 2017 in what critics called extortion and a power play by the crown prince, who described it as an anti-corruption move. Many were released only in exchange for financial settlements. Arrests of prominent figures have continued, according to the anti-corruption commission.