Mohamed Al Fayed, Former proprietor of Harrods, The Ritz Paris, Dies at 94 – WWD

LONDON — Mohamed Al Fayed, the colourful and controversial former proprietor of Harrods, the Ritz in Paris, and Fulham Soccer Membership, has died aged 94.

“Everybody at Fulham was extremely saddened to study of the dying of our former proprietor and chairman, Mohamed Al Fayed. We owe Mohamed a debt of gratitude for what he did for our membership, and our ideas now are along with his household and mates at this somber time,” Fulham FC mentioned in a press release on social media.

The self-made Egyptian tycoon, who grew up in poverty in Alexandria, Egypt and constructed his fortune on delivery, actual property and building, started winding down his companies in 2010 with the sale of Harrods, the place he was generally known as The Chairman.

A divisive determine on the retailer, and among the many British institution, Al Fayed ended his 25-year reign at Harrods by promoting it to Qatar Holding, an funding firm linked to the royal household of the Gulf state.

He offloaded it for 1.5 billion kilos, or $2.27 billion at present alternate, together with about 600 million kilos, or $906 million, in property-backed debt.

Three years later he offered the Fulham soccer membership, which he’d owned for 16 years, to the U.S. automotive billionaire Shahid Khan, proprietor of the Nationwide Soccer League’s Jacksonville Jaguars.

None of Al Fayed’s 4 dwelling kids — his son Dodi died within the 1997 automobile crash that killed Princess Diana — was concerned within the day-to-day operations of the household companies. Satirically, Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed additionally died on what’s Labor Day Weekend within the U.S.

When Al Fayed purchased Harrods in 1985, the Egyptian retailer had spent an estimated 400 million kilos, or $592 million, to remodel what was a staid, drained retailer into an unapologetically opulent retail expertise — however not with out controversy and missteps.

Al Fayed’s administration type might at finest be described as mercurial, and he went via a string of managers who lasted so long as his whims. He would stroll the shop often and ask for issues to be modified, solely to then later ask why one thing was carried out.

He introduced a showman’s hand contact to Harrods — a lot to the shock of its extra staid clientele — and the shop appeared to prosper. 

Jonathan Akeroyd, now CEO of Burberry, joined Harrods in 1988 and mentioned Al Fayed’s presence “was felt each day. All through my time working at Harrods, there was at all times one thing happening. It wasn’t till 1999 that I had the chance to work intently with him and I received to know him effectively. 

“He was a person with unimaginable humor and fervour. I learnt lots from him. He was a real entrepreneur with a imaginative and prescient to take Harrods into a brand new period and make it a worldwide vacation spot for luxurious which he achieved,” mentioned Akeroyd.

Terron Schaefer, who was director of Harrods from 1986 to 1990, mentioned in 2010 that when he first joined the shop, “they had been nonetheless promoting Tampax, rest room paper and notions. It had this type of light class. However Mohamed did a tremendous job actually including some luster to what was form of a drained outdated division retailer,”

“Their motto was ‘every thing for everyone, in every single place,’” Schaefer added.

“After I was [once] within the retailer fascinated about snowboarding, I used to be simply overwhelmed by the collection of sporting items — skis, skiwear, boots, mountaineering, tenting, no matter sport you had been remotely eager about. It’s an infinite choice at all kinds of value factors. However the factor I most cherished about working there have been the home windows. There are 72 home windows across the perimeter of the shop and you may get the deal with on something happening inside,” he added.

Like most London retailers, Harrods has had its ups and downs over the a long time, nevertheless it has not too long ago been prospering underneath the present homeowners. 

Within the fiscal yr ended January 2023, Harrods bounced again from the pandemic, with turnover rising 42.9 p.c to 831.6 million kilos, and revenue after tax surging to 433.3 million kilos from 41.7 million kilos.

Al Fayed was born in 1929 in Roshdy, a poor neighborhood in Alexandria within the Kingdom of Egypt because it was known as earlier than the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. His father was a main college instructor, however a lifetime of poverty was not for him, and the formidable Al Fayed selected a unique path.

In Egypt he started as a road vendor, hawking carbonated drinks, and later stitching machines, earlier than working for Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian businessman and arms vendor. Within the early Nineteen Fifties, Al Fayed married Khashoggi’s sister Samira, and the couple had one son, Dodi, earlier than separating.

Within the ensuing years, as Al Fayed constructed his empire, he was usually economical with the reality. His web site used to say he was born in 1933, however Britain’s Division of Commerce discovered the yr to be 1922. 

Within the Seventies, they tycoon added the flamboyant prefix “Al” to his surname. He additionally fudged particulars in regards to the supply of his household’s wealth earlier than shopping for Harrods and its then-parent Home of Fraser.

A authorities report into the Harrods deal fell simply in need of calling Al Fayed and his brothers liars in regards to the dimension of their fortune, though the federal government took no authorized motion and will by no means discover out the place precisely the Al Fayeds received the funds to purchase the shop — rumors ranged from the Sultan of Brunei to a string of far-from-savory characters.

Personal Eye, the satirical British information journal nicknamed him the “Phoney Pharaoh.”

Earlier than venturing into the world of retail, he had a delivery firm along with his brothers that was based mostly in Egypt earlier than transferring it to Genoa, Italy with workplaces in London.

Within the mid-Nineteen Sixties, he cosied as much as Haitian chief François Duvalier, in any other case generally known as Papa Doc, to type an oil refinery known as Fayed-Duvalier. Al Fayed left Haiti for London – after simply six months – when he was offered with oil that was disguised as molasses.

In London, he began a relationship with Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, an Emirati royal and a founding father of the United Arab Emirates, serving to him to remodel Dubai by introducing him to building firms corresponding to Bernard Sunley & Sons, Taylor Woodrow and the Costain Group, the place he grew to become a director and 30 p.c shareholder.

Al Fayed’s massive step got here into luxurious in 1979, when he purchased the near-bankrupt The Ritz resort in Paris for $30 million.

He spent roughly $250 million on a ten-year renovation with out ever closing the resort’s doorways. He enlisted the assistance of a French architect from 1980 to 1987 to spruce up the institution, from high to backside, together with the well-known Ritz Bar, the place Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald famously drank within the Twenties. The bar was added within the Cambon wing, throughout the road from Chanel.

In 1984, after snapping up The Ritz, Al Fayed alongside along with his brothers, bought a 30 p.c stake within the Home of Fraser group, which included Harrods, from Roland Walter “Tiny” Rowland. The next yr, they purchased the remaining 70 p.c.

Al Fayed and Rowland had a tumultuous relationship, throwing daggers at one another within the press at any time doable.

Within the Eighties, Al Fayed accused Rowland of campaigning in opposition to him within the Observer newspaper, which Rowland then owned, and Rowland had the British authorities’s Division of Commerce and Business launch an investigation into Al Fayed and his actions. 

No motion was taken as a part of the investigation — although it did discover Al Fayed and his brother Ali misrepresented the extent of their wealth once they bid for Home of Fraser. It was by no means decided the place the Al Fayeds really received the funds to purchase the corporate. 

There was an extended historical past of such scandals: In 1994, Al Fayed was concerned in what got here to be generally known as the cash-for-questions scandal, which in the end resulted within the resignation of two British MPs. 

Different controversies weren’t as weighty.

Within the mid-Nineties, Harrods started charging folks 1 pound (about $1.50) to make use of the loos in a bid to discourage non-shoppers from availing themselves of the services. Right now, clients now not must pay.

Then there was the uproar that accompanied his choice to ban backpacks and huge purses from the shop, leading to many vacationers being turned away by safety, though this follow was extra comprehensible within the Nineties given Harrods was a daily goal of bombs by the Irish Republican Military.

Harrods was Al Fayed’s most prized possession, and he usually in contrast it to pyramids in Egypt.

In 2010 – earlier than promoting the shop – he informed The Sunday Instances of London that he deliberate to personal the enterprise for the remainder of his life, and when he died he hoped to be entombed in a mausoleum on the roof of the shop — a want he’s expressed repeatedly. 

“It’s a pyramid for me, a monument,” he informed the British paper. “It’s the finest division retailer on this planet.”

Al Fayed’s autocratic type and delusions of grandeur meant that Harrods had a revolving door of managers for years.

Former Gucci Group govt James McArthur left his publish as chief govt officer of Harrods lower than a yr after beginning his position. Martha Wikstrom was additionally managing director of the shop for a interval, staying there for lower than two years. 

Al Fayed might additionally let the highest brass shine, and it paid off. Marigay McKee, the shop’s trend and sweetness director, reworked each of these divisions.

“Fayed realized how a lot worth she’s including to the shop, so she’s allowed to have a profile,” a former worker informed WWD in 2010. “And the unhappiness up to now was that a variety of good folks went for the improper causes.”

Empowered by Al Fayed, McKee had spearheaded a string of trend initiatives together with the creation of the Worldwide Designer Room on the shop’s first flooring, which launched in September 2009, showcasing 40 labels together with RM by Roland Mouret, Prada, Balmain, Lanvin, Balenciaga and Chloé.

His administration type was actually distinctive.

On his common excursions of the shop, staff would actually run for canopy once they noticed him coming for concern he’d discover them and hearth them on the spot for some imagined infraction, or berate them on the high of his voice for one thing he didn’t like. Then, just a few weeks later, after they’d made the change, he’d ask them to vary it again once more.

On his watch, feminine workers members needed to costume in black and put on a full face of make-up. The worker entrance to the shop had an enormous room crammed with illuminated mirrors so that girls staffers might apply and refresh their make-up all through the day.

Al Fayed was identified to name on a whim in any respect hours of the day or night time, and cherished off-color jokes. After one dinner with press and members of Harrods administration, Al Fayed walked across the desk handing out mints to all the males. He insisted, along with his Cheshire Cat smile, that they had been Viagra tablets.

His style was additionally questionable.

In 1988 Al Fayed put in the glittering, cartoonish Egyptian corridor and escalator at a value of 20 million kilos, or $29.6 million. The corridor is embellished with busts of Tutankhamun-like figures at every flooring and Al Fayed marked the opening by donning an Egyptian headdress and robes.

Famously, the shop had additionally acted as a shrine to Al Fayed’s late son Dodi and Princess Diana. Two memorials to the late couple was once on present on the retailer — a bronze statue of the couple dancing, which stood close to to one of many retailer’s entrances, and a shrine on the decrease floor flooring made up of pictures of the couple and a few of their possessions surrounded by candles.

The statue was returned to Al Fayed in 2018 and the shrine has been dismantled.

“We’re very proud to have performed our position in celebrating the lives of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed at Harrods and to have welcomed folks from around the globe to go to the memorial for the previous 20 years,” mentioned Michael Ward, Harrods managing director on the time.

“With the announcement of the brand new official memorial statue to Diana, Princess of Wales at Kensington Palace, we really feel that the time is correct to return this memorial to Mr. Al Fayed and for the general public to be invited to pay their respects on the palace,” Ward added.

On Al Fayed’s watch the shop had a PA system, just like that of a grocery store, blasting out information of promotions and occasions.

In 2003, he supplied Krispy Kreme a big house within the meals corridor, a lot to the horror of Knightsbridge residents who would watch as crowds of vacationers chomped their doughnuts on the pavement outdoors the posh retailer.

Al Fayed may be terribly beneficiant, showering executives with automobiles, flats on Park Lane and all-expenses-paid journeys. However as shortly as they received his favor, they simply as quickly — and inexplicably — misplaced it; one senior govt was as soon as dismissed due to the model of fits he purchased.

He made massive donations through the household’s charitable basis. The cash went to Nice Ormond Road and Royal Marsden hospitals, and he additionally made quiet funds for personal medical take care of sure staff who had been unwell.

He was cussed, opinionated and had a troublesome time letting go of his grievances.

Many upper-crust Brits refused to enter its doorways after Al Fayed purchased the shop. These destructive emotions towards him solely grew along with his outspoken marketing campaign to show the deaths of his son Dodi and Princess Diana had been ordered by the British royal household as a result of the couple was about to be married.

For years Al Fayed had solid an in depth relationship with the late Princess of Wales. They had been concerned with the identical charities, attended related occasions, and their relationship was depicted in dramatic element throughout a number of episodes of “The Crown.”

Al Fayed’s ambitions of proving a royal conspiracy was shattered in 2008, when the jury on the official inquest into the deaths of Dodi and Diana determined that they’d been unlawfully killed.

The jury pinned the blame on the couple’s chauffeur, Henri Paul, who was driving drunk, and on the group of paparazzi that pursued the couple on motorbikes from The Ritz resort in Paris into the tunnel the place their automobile crashed.

A starring position in just a few episodes of “The Crown” wasn’t Al Fayed’s solely brush with the movie business.

In 1979, he arrange movie manufacturing firm Allied Stars Ltd, appointing his son Dodi because the chief govt. The corporate backed the movie “Chariots of Fireplace,” and it earned them 4 Academy Awards together with Finest Image, Authentic Screenplay, Costume Design and Authentic Rating.

Al Fayed additionally funded Keith Allen’s 2011 documentary “Illegal Killing,” based mostly on the dying of Princess Diana, which Allied Stars produced. The manufacturing firm is now defunct.

As a consequence of his prickly relationship with the British institution and the royal household, Harrods misplaced its long-held royal warrants that had been displayed on the shop’s facade. When Al Fayed was compelled to take away them, he changed them with the Arab crest.

Throughout King Charles III’s coronation earlier this yr, Harrods didn’t do something particular past issuing a particular mix of English breakfast tea and Scottish shortbread fingers, each in ornamental tins.

Al Fayed is survived by his Finnish spouse Heini Wathén, their 4 kids Jasmine, Karim, Camilla, and Omar, and quite a few grandchildren.