Saudi Arabia Frees Media Mogul, but His Company’s Fate Remains a Mystery

BEIRUT — Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia has long admired MBC, the media giant of the Arab world, with its coveted array of television channels that deliver hit shows like “Oprah” and “Arabs Got Talent” to hundreds of millions of homes.

Two years ago, the crown prince began negotiations to buy it, but in November the talks took a mysterious turn: The company’s Saudi owners and most of its board members were summoned to Riyadh, the capital, arrested, accused of corruption and locked in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, along with hundreds of the kingdom’s other wealthiest and most powerful men.

On Friday, the tale took another turn, when the company’s chief owner, Waleed al-Ibrahim, was released from the Ritz after 83 days, according to a memo to MBC staff members seen by The New York Times.

Two and a half months after the start of what the Saudi government has called a crackdown on systematic corruption, the campaign appears to be moving to a new phase. Most of the roughly 350 men detained have been released, after either being cleared or surrendering significant assets to the government. And Crown Prince Mohammed is turning the screws on those who remain, threatening to move them to an actual prison and put them on trial, Saudi officials say.

But much about the operation remains shrouded in secrecy, including why al-Ibrahim and MBC’s other leaders were locked up.

It also is unclear what sort of accommodation brought about his release, including whether he surrendered any MBC assets or management control.

Crown Prince Mohammed has said that the crackdown could return $100 billion in ill-gotten gains to the treasury while sending a firm message that the old, corrupt ways of doing business are over. He has billed the crackdown as part of his broader effort to diversify the economy away from oil, increase transparency and attract foreign investment.

But others say that relying on such an ad hoc process — in which the accused were locked in a hotel and denied free access to their lawyers while being pressed to transfer assets to the state — could undermine the very reforms the prince is trying to achieve.

“Saying that we are now holding the Saudi elites to the rule of law, but we are going to resolve their cases not through a defined process but through some under-the-table, shady dealings, it is like resolving corruption with a new form of corruption,” said Andrew Bowen, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

The MBC episode suggests, and many Saudis suspect, that wrapped up in the anti-corruption drive are other motivations, like the desire to diminish rivals, settle scores and perhaps seize choice assets, like MBC.

MBC was founded in 1991 in London, by al-Ibrahim, whose sister was married to King Fahd, and by another businessman, Saleh Kamel, who was also locked in the Ritz and accused of corruption.

The king funded the company at the start, but it really took off after moving to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in 2002, spawning a variety of entertainment and sports channels and earning healthy profits for its owners.

The company has generally shied away from politics while advancing a relatively liberal social agenda in the context of the Arab world.

Crown Prince Mohammed, 32, emerged into the public eye in 2015 when his father, King Salman, became the Saudi monarch and began giving his son tremendous power. In the next few years, the prince would take effective control of the kingdom’s oil, defense and economic policies while sidelining his royal relatives to become next in line to the throne.

His representatives began negotiating with al-Ibrahim about buying MBC in 2015, but the talks soon bogged down because the prince insisted on paying substantially less than the more than $3 billion al-Ibrahim felt the channel was worth, according to associates of the company’s leadership. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering the prince.

Last fall, accountants from PwC UK were brought in to vet the company’s books. Then in early November, al-Ibrahim was summoned to Riyadh from Dubai for a meeting he believed was to complete the deal with Crown Prince Mohammed. But after he arrived in Riyadh, Saudi news outlets reported the first arrests in the crackdown.

The next day, he arrived for his meeting, but instead of seeing the crown prince, he was arrested and later taken to the Ritz. Other shareholders and most members of the company’s board of directors were locked up, too, raising fears inside the company that instead of buying MBC, the prince now planned to take it for free.

The Saudi government did not respond to a request for comment, and representatives of MBC and PwC declined to comment.

Citing privacy laws, the Saudi government has never said why it detained al-Ibrahim, nor whether his detention was related to MBC or to his other sizable assets.

His close connections to King Fahd, who died in 2005, helped him become one of the kingdom’s most prominent businessmen and gave him tremendous wealth. Many other associates and sons of King Fahd and his successor, King Abdullah, have also spent time in detention in the Ritz, leading some to speculate that the crown prince is cutting down those empowered during previous eras.

“This reinforces the image that despite the broader push to fight corruption, personal scores and interests among the Saudi leaders have also been pursued,” said Bowen of the American Enterprise Institute.

Al-Ibrahim’s release was announced to MBC staff members in an email late Friday from Sam Barnett, the company’s chief executive officer.

“I am delighted to announce that Sheikh Waleed has just got back and is with members of his family in Riyadh,” Barnett wrote, using an honorary title for al-Ibrahim. “Please join all of us in wishing him and his family our very best wishes.”

Employees were left to wonder, however, whether MBC still belonged to al-Ibrahim or how his detention would affect his role.

The company could go the way of the Bin Laden Group, which for decades served as the monarchy’s preferred construction contractor. After five of the brothers who were leading the company were locked up, the government seized effective control of its board and is transferring the family’s shares to the government, according to a person briefed on the agreement who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

MBC also could go the way of Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language satellite news channel launched by MBC in 2003. In 2014, the Saudi Royal Court effectively took control of the channel, according to associates of MBC’s leadership. But to maintain the appearance of the channel’s independence, the change was never made public.