BY GEORGE HAY

Mohammed bin Salman secured a handsome return on his anti-corruption drive. The crown prince and heir to the Saudi Arabian throne over the weekend released billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal after more than two months in Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton. While details of any financial settlement are yet to emerge, the circumstances of his release make the actual amount slightly beside the point.

Alwaleed and hundreds of other Saudi figures were rounded up in November on allegations of corruption. Shortly thereafter, media reports suggested the government was hoping to raise some $100 billion from the ill-gotten gains of those held in the posh hotel, which weeks earlier hosted a global investment conference for the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund.

A shakedown of private riches appeared plausible given the country’s finances. Saudi Arabia’s fiscal deficit for 2017 was 8.9 percent. But an interview given by Alwaleed to Reuters shortly before his release cast doubt on the financial motives of the purge. The prince downplayed his incarceration as “a misunderstanding” and predicted that not only would he retain control of his Kingdom Holding investment vehicle but that there would be no charges.

Letting Alwaleed, a big shareholder of Citigroup and Twitter, check out without a hefty bill would still make sense. Peremptorily imprisoning prominent subjects probably sits uneasily with one of MbS’s other key objectives. He needs to drum up sufficient trust in state oil group Saudi Aramco to enable a sale of 5 percent of its shares to global investors at a $2 trillion valuation. Unless accompanied by clear evidence of wrongdoing, confiscating private wealth is a bad sign for prospective owners.

More significant is the fact that the 32-year-old future monarch will be the first on the Saudi throne to represent the third generation descending from Saudi Arabia’s founder. Given his accompanying need to diversify the domestic economy and modernize society, the worth of signalling his personal power to a young populace and a conservative establishment cannot be overstated.

There can be few more effective ways of doing this than having one of the Kingdom’s best-known businessman dismiss over two months of effective imprisonment as just one of those things. While Alwaleed called claims he’d been tortured “a bunch of lies”, he looked noticeably thinner. The power of that image alone is arguably more valuable than any financial payment.

First published Jan. 29, 2018

(Image: REUTERS/Katie Paul)