Adveith Nair, Shaji Mathew and Sophie AlexanderBill Gates will take control of the Four Seasons hotel group after his investment firm agreed to acquire a stake from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding, in a bet that luxury travel will rebound from a pandemic-induced slump.
Gates, 65, and Alwaleed, 66, have known each other for decades. In 2017, the Microsoft co-founder described the prince as an “important partner” in their charitable work, and he was one of a few Western executives to voice support for Alwaleed after he was detained and accused of corruption by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
Its landmark Kingdom Tower in Riyadh is among the two dozen hotels it owns across the Middle East and Africa. That property is popular among the consultants and bankers who commute from nearby Dubai and have helped transform Saudi Arabia’s economy. Cascade, which is run by Gates’s money manager, Michael Larson, first invested in Four Seasons in 1997, when it was publicly traded. The investment firm also manages the endowment of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.