Richest Middle East Families: #Qatar’s Al Thanis Use $150 Billion for Influence - Bloomberg

Richest Middle East Families: Qatar’s Al Thanis Use $150 Billion for Influence - Bloomberg

On a promontory jutting into the Persian Gulf, the Sheraton Grand Doha Resort & Convention Hotel is an outlier among the skinny skyscrapers that dominate the skyline of Doha, Qatar’s capital. In 1982 the country’s ruling Al Thani family ordered the construction of the five-star hotel, with its private beach and opulent marble lobby. Today the site functions as both luxury resort and nerve center of crisis diplomacy. Here warring factions from the Taliban and African militias have convened, and diplomats from Russia, the US and Iran have crossed paths in hallways.

The only-in-Qatar milieu embodies how the royal family parlays its wealth into geopolitical influence, most recently as a key mediator for the Israel-Hamas war. The rulers have turned Qatar into a vital energy supplier, prominent investor, World Cup host, university funder and conflict intermediary—­occasionally tinged with controversy involving corruption allegations or human-rights concerns. Yet their strategic spending ultimately comes back to one thing: building Qatar into an international brand that can underpin its existence and the family’s longevity.

To finance these ambitions, the Al Thanis have tapped Qatar’s state resources, along with their personal wealth. The royal family’s holdings alone amount to at least $150 billion, according to an estimate by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That figure excludes government money, such as the Qatar Investment Authority’s (QIA) $450 billion in assets, including the Sheraton Grand.

Vulnerable amid powerful neighbors, the Al Thanis are leveraging that wealth and the relationships it fosters to become an indispensable broker among rivals. “They are constantly on the lookout for what their neighbors might do,” says Baraa Shiban, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. The royal family stands out in the Middle East for its willingness, often at US behest, to reach out to countries and groups that America and the rest of the West consider pariahs, Shiban says. “The Al Thanis are different—they are very dynamic, and that’s important,” Shiban says. A host to exiled leaders of Hamas, Qatar has helped facilitate the release of more than 100 Israelis and other hostages seized by the group, considered terrorists by the US and European Union, after it killed some 1,200 people in the brutal Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel.