This time it's the al-Thani family of Qatar, a Yorkshire-sized peninsula jutting into the Gulf from the coast of Saudi Arabia. They are latecomers to the game, compared with their better known cousins in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
But they already own stakes in the London Stock Exchange, Sainsbury and Barclays Bank and a property empire that includes Canary Wharf, tracts of central London, to put alongside its European holdings such as part-ownership of Credit Suisse, Porsche and Volkswagen.
Already wealthy from oil, it was a single technological advance which shot Qatar's financial reserves into the stratosphere in the 1990s. The invention of liquefaction processes which allowed the long-distance transport by tanker of its main resource, natural gas, saw the development of new markets around the world. Since then, Qatar has exploded economically. It has now reportedly overtaken Liechtenstein as the richest country per head of population.
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