Cairo - Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the richest man in the Arab world, is to boycott Forbes magazine's global billionaires list claiming that it underestimates his wealth, his Kingdom Holding Company announced Tuesday.
Forbes' recently issued billionaires list puts Alwaleed at 26th place, with a net worth of 20 billion dollars.
A statement posted on the company's website said that “Prince Alwaleed has taken this step as he felt he could no longer participate in a process which resulted in the use of incorrect data and seemed designed to disadvantage Middle Eastern investors and institutions.”
It said Forbes was using “differing standards of proof for different individuals and organisations resulting in an arbitrary and confusing set of standards that seems demonstrably biased against the Middle East.”
The Kingdom Holding Company statement included a recommendation for the rival Bloomberg Billionaires List which puts Alwaleed in 16th place worldwide and pegs his wealth at 28 billion dollars.
An article posted on Forbes' website hit back at Alwaleed, saying that “Of the 1,426 billionaires on our list, not one ... goes to greater measures to try to affect his or her ranking.”
Forbes writer Kerry Dolan added that “former Alwaleed executives have been telling me that the prince, while indeed one of the richest men in the world, systematically exaggerates his net worth by several billion dollars.” - Sapa-dpa