Mohamed Al Fayed, an Egyptian billionaire living in Britain, has sold the Harrods Department Store in London to the Qatar Holdings for £1.5 billion (LE12.555 billion), news agencies reported.
The deal was made early yesterday and will be announced officially soon, according to Reuters.
Al Fayed became the owner of Harrods in 1985 after he acquired it at a cost of £615 million. El-Fayed reportedly said a few days earlier that he doesn’t intend to sell the store.
In statements to the Times newspaper he even expressed his wish to be mummified and buried on the roof of one of his stores in London, likening Harrods to a pyramid or a memorial building. Al Fayed was reported as saying that he tours his store for two hours every day.
News reports from last week had quoted “informed” Qatari sources as saying that Qatar Holdings–which is owned by the Qatari Royal family–held talks with Al Fayed in order to purchase Harrods. However, Al Fayed dismissed the news as false.
Trasnlated from the Arabic Edition.
