How much of London is owned by Qatar’s royal family?

Guardian (UK) has the story:

Qatar’s royals are adding a massive £200m-plus Regent’s Park palace to their multiple investments in the capital. So apart from Harrods, what else have they acquired in their ongoing spending spree?

It will by all accounts be one hell of a gaff: a Grade I listed, 13-bedroom, 30,000 sq ft, twin-lift mansion on Regent’s Park, complete with spa, heated swimming pool, gymnasium, beauty salon, powder rooms, a children’s floor, games rooms, wine cellar, fumoir and staff wing. When the conversion of numbers 1, 2 and 3 Cornwall Terrace – acquired last year for £120m by Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, one of the three wives of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the former emir of Qatar – is complete, the resulting palace is expected to be London’s first £200m-plus pad.

But that sum pales into insignificance besides the value of the Qatari royal family’s other holdings in London. In a spending spree that started in 2008, the ruling Al Thani family and its assorted investment vehicles, including the Qatar Investment Fund, have acquired a 20% slice of Camden market; posh department store Harrods; 95% of the Shard, at 87 storeys the EU’s tallest building; the Olympic village; half of the world’s most expensive apartment block at One Hyde Park; the Chelsea Barracks site, and the US embassy building in Grosvenor Square.

Along the way, Qatar has also acquired just over a quarter of Sainsbury’s, some 8% of the London Stock Exchange, and nearly 7% of Barclays. As the former Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani (not to be confused with the current eighth emir, 34-year-old Sherborne, Harrow and Sandhurst-educated Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, whose London home the neoclassical Cornwall Terrace mansion will be) observed to the Financial Times in a rare 2010 interview, “We are investing everywhere. Even your Harrod’s – we took it.”

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