Clerics who would be deal killers
From today's Financial Times:
An initial public offering, launched on Tuesday by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding was this week the target of the kind of attack that is increasingly common in business in the region – a critical religious edict or fatwa.The Prince, however, is by all accounts, undaunted:
The fatwa criticised some of the company’s investments as un-Islamic, underlining the influence of Islam on the conservative kingdom’s financial system.
Cleric Mohammed al Ossaimi, who has pronounced on the religious credentials of other IPOs, said on a website that some of Kingdom Holding’s investments were in businesses inimical to Islamic values, such as usury and alcohol.
"With this IPO, we will give the people of Saudi Arabia a chance to invest in its number one company,” said Prince Alwaleed, whose company had $25bn in assets at the end of 2006.
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