Qatar Diar buys stake in Fairmont Raffles for $847m

Affiliates of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund have paid $847 million for a stake in hotelier Fairmont Raffles Holdings International from Kingdom Holding, to become the biggest shareholder in the group.

Kingdom Holding said in a statement that Fairmont Raffles had agreed to sell 40 per cent of its capital to Cayman Islands-based Voyager Partners Ltd and Qatari Diar, which is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority.

Kingdom Holding did not say whether the stake involved new or existing shares in Fairmont Raffles Holdings.

The relationship between Voyager Partners and Qatari Diar could not be immediately clarified and neither party was immediately available for comment.

Raffles Fairmont would use the money to fund current and future expansion and Kingdom, 95-per-cent owned by billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed, would see its stake fall to 35 per cent from 58 per cent after the deal, Kingdom added.

Kingdom Holding, a main shareholder in Citigroup Inc, posted a net profit of 156 million riyals ($41.60m) in the fourth-quarter, following a 30.98 billion riyals loss a year earlier.

It said on January 5 that it would cut its capital by 41 per cent, a move analysts said was aimed at wiping out accumulated and unrealised losses which reached 65 per cent of its capital at the end of the third quarter of 2009.