Suhail Bahwan on Forbes list of richest Arabs

Energy Saturday 15/April/2017 09:35 AM
By: Times News Service
Suhail Bahwan on Forbes list of richest Arabs

Muscat: Suhail Bahwan of Oman is one of the top 10 new billionaires to feature in the list of Forbes World’s Richest Arabs 2017.
Bahwan has been ranked sixth, with a net worth of $4.1 billion.
Suhail Bahwan started out as a trader sailing a dhow; he inherited it from his father, and plied the waters between Oman and India. He never turned much of a profit, so in 1965 he moved from his small coastal village of Sur to Muscat, opening a shop in the souq.
“He sold fishing nets, boating accessories and building materials, before scoring his first license in 1968 with Seiko, followed by Toshiba,” Forbes magazine said in its description of Bahwan. He and his late brother Saud became Toyota’s distributors in Oman in 1975. Suhail’s daughter Amal now helps run the Suhail Bahwan Group, which is the biggest privately-owned business in Oman, with interests in fertilizers, healthcare and construction.”
While Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal retains the number one slot with an estimated $18.7 billion fortune, he is followed by Majid Al Futtaim, which runs businesses in several GCC countries, including Oman. The magazine estimates the Majid Al Futtaim fortune at $10.6 billion; the company owns and operates shopping malls in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.