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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Our story today begins

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Speaker 1: in a hotel, a Chraton, in Doha, the capital city

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Speaker 1: of Qatar.

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Speaker 2: It's right on the shore, a five store resort, very dramatic.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of shaped like a pyramid.

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Speaker 1: This is Devin Pendleton, who covers wealth for Bloomberg.

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Speaker 2: A really extraordinary place. I mean there's no kind of

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Speaker 2: hotel like it in the world.

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Speaker 1: You might say the hotel is very nice, lots of amenities,

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Speaker 1: hundreds of rooms, but this isn't what makes it so special,

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Speaker 1: because this hotel in the middle of a country that

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Speaker 1: is half the size of Vermont, has become a kind

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Speaker 1: of nerve center for global politics.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of a hotel come diplomatic hot spot.

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Speaker 1: So this isn't just a regular old chraiton, absolutely.

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Speaker 2: I mean it kind of quickly came to encapsulate this

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Speaker 2: very kind of identity of Qatar, which is as a

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Speaker 2: broker for the world, is a place where all different

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Speaker 2: factions can come together to kind of broker difficult conflicts.

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Speaker 1: This very hotel hosted representatives from the US and the

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Speaker 1: Taliban to hammer out the US's withdrawal from Afghanistan. Russia

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Speaker 1: and Iran convened here to negotiate energy policy amid Western sanctions.

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Speaker 1: In the last six months, Qatar has been involved in

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Speaker 1: ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. It is also engaged

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Speaker 1: in the delicate dance of de escalating tensions between Israel

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Speaker 1: and Iran after the two countries traded military strikes this month,

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Speaker 1: raising the risk of a greater regional conflict. Qatar didn't

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Speaker 1: become a diplomatic hotspot by accident. It's the result of

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Speaker 1: a decade's long campaign. Over the last thirty years, Qatar

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Speaker 1: and its royal family have amassed an enormous amount of money, property, influence,

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Speaker 1: and attention, not all of it good. Today on the show,

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Speaker 1: we tracked the meteoric rise of Qatar and its royal family,

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Speaker 1: how they leveraged their wealth to become a global player

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Speaker 1: and managed to put themselves in the center of one

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Speaker 1: of the most important geopolitical negotiations on the planet. This

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Speaker 1: is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.

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Speaker 1: Qatar's central role in Middle Eastern relations today might have

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Speaker 1: been surprising even a few decades ago.

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Speaker 2: So Qatar was for a long long time. It was

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Speaker 2: this little country. It's kind of at the very tip.

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Speaker 2: It's on a peninsula sticking into the Persian Gulf.

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Speaker 1: Wealth reporter Devin Pendleton says that for years Qatar had

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Speaker 1: to fight for its own existence.

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Speaker 2: And for a long time it was contested by these

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Speaker 2: very sort of powerful neighbors, powerful tribes really from Bahrain

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Speaker 2: and from Saudi Arabia. The Ottoman Empire wanted it for

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Speaker 2: a while, and so it was almost by twist of

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Speaker 2: fate that they became their own independent country. And they

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Speaker 2: were a British protectorate for a number of years. And

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Speaker 2: back then, I mean, the country was so different than

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Speaker 2: it is today. Their main source was a port, serving

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Speaker 2: as a port for different ships coming and going and

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Speaker 2: bringing goods, and also pearling diving for pearls which was

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Speaker 2: sort of an economic mainstay in the region back then. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: that didn't bring in tremendous amount of money. It was

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Speaker 2: very poor country.

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Speaker 1: That started to change in the nineteen forties when Qatar

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Speaker 1: discovered oil reserves, but it wasn't a ton of oil,

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Speaker 1: not nearly as much as some of its neighbors like

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Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia. The real game changer for Qatar came in

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Speaker 1: the seventies when it found it was also sitting on

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Speaker 1: a lot of natural gas.

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Speaker 2: Their reserves are absolutely enormous and they share it with Iran,

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Speaker 2: and their share is absolutely huge. But it didn't really

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Speaker 2: kind of you didn't see the effects hitting their economy

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Speaker 2: until the nineteen nineties because during that time they were

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Speaker 2: building up the technology to transform that natural gas into

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Speaker 2: what we call liquified natural gas, and that is basically

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Speaker 2: a process where you freeze it, freeze it, freeze it

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Speaker 2: so that you can basically liquify it and then stack

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Speaker 2: it onto ships and send it around. And that was

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Speaker 2: an absolute windfall for the country. I mean, that's brought

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Speaker 2: them in billions and billions of dollars.

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Speaker 1: Today Qatar is one of the largest exporters of natural

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Speaker 1: gas in the world. This explosive growth was particularly good

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Speaker 1: news for Qatar's ruling family, the Althanis.

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Speaker 2: The Alfani royal family has been the royal family and

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Speaker 2: the country for generations and they are a very very

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Speaker 2: big family. They take up most of the really significant

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Speaker 2: leadership roles in the country, the Emir and the Prime Minister,

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Speaker 2: the foreign minister, the Althani's They essentially are the country.

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Speaker 1: In other words, a windfall for Katar meant a windfall

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Speaker 1: for the Althanis. Devin crunched the numbers on just how

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Speaker 1: wealthy the family is. Can you walk us through how

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Speaker 1: vast the Althani's wealth is.

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Speaker 2: It's so vast is to almost be a number that's

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Speaker 2: really difficult to pin down, and a lot of it

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Speaker 2: is because there is a degree of opacity between state

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Speaker 2: money and personal money.

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Speaker 1: All told, Devin says the al Thani family has a

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Speaker 1: net worth of at least one hundred and fifty billion dollars,

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Speaker 1: making it one of the wealthiest families on the planet,

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Speaker 1: and that one hundred and fifty billion could be a

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Speaker 1: lot higher. That's what Devin heard when she asked for

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Speaker 1: comment on her findings.

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Speaker 2: I think their exact words were highly speculative, based on

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Speaker 2: guesswork and flawed extrapolation on background. Sources close to the

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Speaker 2: family said it was low, but all of our calculations

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Speaker 2: are deliberately conservative, and we try to be as conservative

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Speaker 2: as possible. This is really best viewed as an at

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Speaker 2: least number. But what's remarkable really is what the Guitaris

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Speaker 2: have done with that money and how effectively they've reinvested it.

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Speaker 2: I mean, they're very savvy investors and a lot of

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Speaker 2: their investments have a lot to do with kind of

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Speaker 2: promoting Qatar as a as a brand.

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Speaker 1: The family has invested its billions all over the world,

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Speaker 1: snapping up large shares of banks like Barclay's and stakes

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Speaker 1: in some well known high end companies.

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Speaker 2: Some of the ones that are fairly well known are

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Speaker 2: you might have heard of the French department store chain

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Speaker 2: proNT Pen. They own that they own some really well

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Speaker 2: known luxury brands like Valentino, for example, they own seventy

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Speaker 2: percent of Valentino. They also owned some really beautiful hotels

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Speaker 2: in London, for example the Canna Hotel, Collarages Hotel, Wow Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Qatar has also poured money into the international news agency

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Speaker 1: Al Jazeera, and has become a major donor for colleges

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Speaker 1: and universities all over the world. According to a Bloomberg analysis,

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Speaker 1: Qatar is the single biggest donor to US universities, responsible

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Speaker 1: for almost six billion dollars in giving so far. But

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Speaker 1: the biggest brand building opportunity came in twenty ten when

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Speaker 1: Qatar landed the bid to host the World Cup. I

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Speaker 1: was actually just watching the video of the ceremony where

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Speaker 1: they officially won the bid, and the royal family was

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Speaker 1: there and they sprung up and were so excited. The

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Speaker 1: winner to organize the two twenty two FIFA World Cup

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Speaker 1: is Qatar. What was the significance of that moment for

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Speaker 1: them and for Qatar? How big of a deal was

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Speaker 1: it for the country.

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Speaker 2: It was a huge deal. I mean many people when

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Speaker 2: Qatar won the World Cup had never even heard of

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Speaker 2: the nation. I mean, it's not even exaggeration. So this

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Speaker 2: was a massive for them. Up until then, sort of

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Speaker 2: their efforts to raise their profile had been hosting certain

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Speaker 2: small diplomatic conventions and then now all of a sudden,

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Speaker 2: they're hosting the biggest sporting event in the world by miles.

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Speaker 2: And it was not without a significant amount of controversy.

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Speaker 1: Qatar's growing prominence didn't come without a price. The country

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Speaker 1: found itself at the center of major international scandals over

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Speaker 1: human rights abuses, bribery, and its relationship with Iran. But

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Speaker 1: the country navigated these and emerged stronger and more powerful

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Speaker 1: than ever. Just how that happened and the influence it

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Speaker 1: has today. After the break, we're back. We've been talking

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Speaker 1: about the royal family of Qatar and their efforts to

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Speaker 1: use their vast wealth to build influence. One prime example

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Speaker 1: was their twenty ten World Cup bid. It was a

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Speaker 1: major victory for Qatar, but it also came within increased scrutiny.

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Speaker 1: As the country was constructing stadiums for the matches, media

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Speaker 1: outlets began exposing some of Katar's troubling labor practices. Here's

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Wealth reporter Devin Pendleton.

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Speaker 2: Again, it cast a light on the system of labor

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Speaker 2: which are common in the Gulf, where you have guest

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Speaker 2: workers come in from countries like Pakistan and Nepal and

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Speaker 2: very very poor workers who could come over temporarily and

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Speaker 2: often have their passports taken away while they're here to work,

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Speaker 2: and of course and often just really grueling conditions and

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Speaker 2: unbelievable heat. There were deaths, and you know, I think

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Speaker 2: they made sort of lip service to improving that and

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Speaker 2: were defensive about the system, but it really got a

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Speaker 2: lot of attention for it, negative attention, I think for

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Speaker 2: a lot of people. The hosting of the Games was

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Speaker 2: seen as a human rights abomination.

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Speaker 1: As these issues were coming to light, questions arose about

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Speaker 1: how Qatar had secured the World Cup in the first place.

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Speaker 2: There were also allegations left right and center of bribes

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Speaker 2: being paid to win votes, and there was actually the

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Speaker 2: US It did end up inditing three FIFA officials for

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Speaker 2: taking money from Qatar.

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Speaker 1: Bad press followed the country all the way up to

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Speaker 1: the World Cup itself in twenty twenty two. In spite

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Speaker 1: of everything, though, Qatar and the al Thani families still

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Speaker 1: considered the event a success.

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Speaker 2: If you ask members of the Althani's most anybody kind

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Speaker 2: of who is close to Qatar, many people saw the

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Speaker 2: World Cup is a massive win. It was a successful cup.

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Speaker 2: It was a really exciting World Cup. It went off

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Speaker 2: more or less without a hitch.

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Speaker 1: This wasn't the only time Qatar would make it out

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Speaker 1: of a tricky situation and come out on top. Back

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Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, in the lead up to the World Cup,

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Speaker 1: the country came under fire from some of its most

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Speaker 1: powerful neighbors. Its close relationship with Iran drew from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt,

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Speaker 1: and the UAE. The Alliance applied some pretty serious pressure

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Speaker 1: on Guitar.

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Speaker 2: It was a move I think that a lot of

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Speaker 2: people didn't see coming. The neighbors that encircle Guitar, led

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Speaker 2: by Saudi Arabia formed an embargo against the country and

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Speaker 2: they cut off all land and water crossings to the country,

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Speaker 2: and it could have been devastating to Qatar, and I

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Speaker 2: think a lot of people thought it would be devastating.

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Speaker 2: They would have no choice but to capitulate, because otherwise

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Speaker 2: their economy would wither up. But they did no such thing.

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Speaker 2: I mean, they did went to extraordinary measures to kind

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Speaker 2: of persist. Like probably the best examples that they the

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Speaker 2: government got busy and they sent money to businesses which

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Speaker 2: airlifted cows from all over the world so that they

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Speaker 2: could have milk and all the dairy that they needed.

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Speaker 1: Cows.

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Speaker 2: It was cows. They were airlifting cows. They were flying

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Speaker 2: in you know, huge jumbo jets of cows, and they

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Speaker 2: you know, shored up their banking system, which of course

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Speaker 2: was in a dire situation, and they just forged new

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Speaker 2: they made new friends, and that's kind of got to

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Speaker 2: the heart of what Katar does so well, is finding allies,

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Speaker 2: forging partnerships. So they formed new trade routes with countries

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Speaker 2: they didn't previously have trade partnerships, or they had weak

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Speaker 2: partnerships like Aman and Iran and Turkey, it showed a

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Speaker 2: real backbone. I think it showed like a real confidence

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Speaker 2: in their belief that this is the best way to

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Speaker 2: survive and thrive in this corner of the world. It's

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Speaker 2: a very risky gambit to kind of seek out and

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Speaker 2: speak to these different factions when you know that it's

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Speaker 2: making powerful people unhappy.

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Speaker 1: Qatar emerged from the embargoes stronger than before, and the

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Speaker 1: world got a glimpse of just how effective the country

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Speaker 1: was and making powerful and unlikely friends. Its role as

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Speaker 1: a mediator is literally written into its constitution where it

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Speaker 1: pledges to strengthen international peace and security by quote encouraging

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Speaker 1: peaceful resolution of international disputes.

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Speaker 2: It's really how the country views itself as a broker

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Speaker 2: between different factions. They see kind of key to their

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Speaker 2: security being a very small country in an area where

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of hostility and conflict is being a broker,

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Speaker 2: being the go to person who can kind of get

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Speaker 2: different warring factions together in one room. And this has

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Speaker 2: also worked in their favor because they have used it

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Speaker 2: to harness a very powerful ally in the US, and

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Speaker 2: the US knows that Qatar can be relied upon. Is

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Speaker 2: they need to get a message to the Iranians, they

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Speaker 2: can have Qatar deliver it, or if they need to

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Speaker 2: get a message to the Taliban, and that is kind

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Speaker 2: of why they are really crucial to the US.

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Speaker 1: This seems like a really important moment to be looking

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Speaker 1: at Qatar in this new role because of the important

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Speaker 1: talks that they've hosted, you know, involving Russia, Iran, and

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Speaker 1: the US, and these these negotiations with Hamas and Israel.

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Speaker 1: Qatar also broke her to deal to bring aid and

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Speaker 1: medicine into Gaza.

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Speaker 2: It exemplifies I think how essential how important money is,

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Speaker 2: because it's it's a really a fascinating approach that Qatar

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Speaker 2: has taken with you know, not just using their money

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Speaker 2: to become an influential investor by investing in Barclay's. It

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Speaker 2: is just remarkable to me that this tiny, little country

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Speaker 2: with a population smaller than Los Angeles is this well known,

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Speaker 2: widespread and powerful.

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Speaker 1: These are obviously high stakes negotiations for any country to

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Speaker 1: be brokering, and given Qatar's human rights record, the allegations

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Speaker 1: of corruption, and its friendliness with countries that have been

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Speaker 1: blacklisted and sanctioned, I ask Devin about their role at

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Speaker 1: the Center of peace negotiations.

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Speaker 2: You know, obviously it's problematic, and it is a matter

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Speaker 2: of sort of who. If not them, then who If

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Speaker 2: the Qataris weren't playing this role, who would they be

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Speaker 2: turning to? You know, if they can't speak directly to Iran,

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Speaker 2: are they not going to speak at all? And then

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Speaker 2: and what does that look like? A lot of major

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Speaker 2: players in the world will tend to see things more

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Speaker 2: black and white, like the US says we do not

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Speaker 2: deal with Iran. Saudi Arabia generally does not like Iran.

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Speaker 2: The UA has very particular views about who they talk to,

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Speaker 2: who they don't, who is good, who is bad. Tar

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Speaker 2: doesn't really have that view. They're more we will talk

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Speaker 2: to anybody. We will talk to anybody, especially if you

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Speaker 2: ask us to. If you need us to, we can

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Speaker 2: go to them. And that is kind of what really

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Speaker 2: makes them distinct is that they haven't written anybody off.

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Speaker 2: They're saying, hey, you want to talk to this guy,

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Speaker 2: I got his number, I can put you in touch.

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Speaker 2: And you know, that's raised eyebrows, that's given them sort

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Speaker 2: of maybe a reputation that's ticked off all sorts of people.

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Speaker 2: But all of a sudden, when one of these countries,

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Speaker 2: these big powerful countries, be it the US, the UK,

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Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia. They need to talk to somebody. They have

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Speaker 2: to go through the Kataris. That puts the Kataris in

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Speaker 2: a really powerful position.

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Speaker 1: As fighting escalates in the Middle East, Qatar's role has

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Speaker 1: become more relevant than ever. Since October seventh, they've played

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Speaker 1: a crucial role in negotiations between Hamas and Israel.

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Speaker 2: They have been successful in helping over one hundred hostages

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Speaker 2: be released, Israeli hostages and hostages from other nations.

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Speaker 1: As Israel's warren Gaza wages on and its conflict with

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Speaker 1: Iran unfolds, Qatar's role is continuing to evolve amid these

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Speaker 1: heightened stakes. The country has come under increased political heat,

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Speaker 1: and Katar's Prime minister has said it is reviewing its

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Speaker 1: role as mediator between Hamas and Israel. For now, Katar's

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Speaker 1: power continues to come from its long held position right

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Speaker 1: in the middle. Thanks for listening to The Big Take

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Speaker 1: podcast from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was

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Speaker 1: produced by Adriana Tapia and Alex Sugiura. It was edited

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Speaker 1: by Stacy Vanicksmith and Christine Araum. It was mixed by

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Speaker 1: Rishi Bajacol. It was fact checked by Thomas lu Naomi

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Speaker 1: Shaven is our senior producer. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.

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Speaker 1: Nicole bumsterbor is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's

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Speaker 1: head of podcasts. Suscribe and review The Big Take. Wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts, it helps new listeners find the show.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, We'll be back tomorrow