In her Saudi Arabia homeland, Lubna Olayan can’t drive, show her hair in public or leave the country without her husband’s permission. She can, however, run one of the nation’s biggest conglomerates.
A former analyst at J.P. Morgan, Olayan oversees the Middle East operations of Olayan Group, a diversified company founded by her father in 1947. With 15,000 employees and 50 affiliated companies, the Athens-based business is active in almost every sector of the Saudi economy including oilfield services, steel and fast food.
She’s one of a small number of women “in the elite gulf business scene that turn out to be the brightest and particularly suited, so chosen by their fathers to run the business,” said David Butter, a Middle East business analyst and fellow at Chatham House in London.
Olayan, 59, helps manage 40 closely held companies and joint ventures as well as more than $4.4 billion in publicly traded Saudi equities, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In 2004, she became the first woman to be elected to the board of a Saudi company, Saudi Hollandi Bank, in which an Olayan Group division has a 21.8 percent stake.
During her tenure, the company formed an agreement to provide logistics services to Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil exporter, and one of its joint ventures was chosen as the lead developer of a technology hub at the King Abdullah Economic City project outside Jeddah.
Hidden Billionaires
Through a joint venture with The Weir Group, they are one of the country’s biggest makers of tubular oilfield equipment. Their food division is the master franchise-holder for Burger King in the Middle East and North Africa. They manufacture aluminum, steel and plastics while also being the local producer of Kleenex, Coca-Cola and Huggies diapers.
Based on its disclosed equity holdings, property investments and three of its closely-held businesses, Olayan Group is valued at more than $10 billion, making billionaires of its late founder’s four children, Khaled, Hayat, Hutham and Lubna Olayan, and widow, American-born Mary Perdikis Olayan, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. None of them have ever appeared individually on an international wealth ranking.
In Saudi Arabia, family businesses are often passed onto the second generation in accordance with Islamic law, whereby sons receive twice as much as daughters. A person familiar with the group who asked to be identified because the information is private, said in this case it’s probable that the assets are shared equally by the five beneficiaries.
Tony Kutayli, a spokesman for Olayan Group, disputed the valuation and declined to provide further details.