Apple can't save Saudi billionaire

By Lionel Laurent, Forbes.com

The problem is that for all its recent gains, Apple's stock has yet to recover losses suffered since 2008. As of June 30 of this year, Apple was down 19% year-over-year.

So while it's definitely been a better performer than Prince al-Waleed's other stock picks - step forward Citigroup, down 83%; Eastman Kodak, down 80%; News Corp, down 33% - it may be a while before it helps annual comparisons for the Saudi investor.

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Perhaps Apple's quarterly earnings, will offer an extra boost. Net income stood at $1.23bn, or $1.35 a share, compared with net income of $1.07bn, or $1.19, from a year ago. Sales revenue rose to $8.3bn, from $7.5bn, ahead of expectations.

But it's not all tears for Prince al-Waleed, though. He cannily bought his 5% stake in Apple back in 1997, for $115m, at a time when the company was in trouble and facing down a takeover bid from Oracle. At current prices, his stake is worth $6.8bn, or 60 times the initial investment.

Kingdom Holdings announced second-quarter profits of SR92.1m ($24.6m) on Tuesday, down from SR534.7m ($142.8m) a year earlier. On a sequential basis, however, the market rally did the company some good: profits soared 83.4% between the first and second quarter.

Shares of Kingdom Holdings were down 3.1%, to SR4.70 ($1.25), on the Riyadh stock market. The stock is down 8.7% over the past month and down 48% over the year.

Al-Waleed ranked 22 on Forbes' list of the world's billionaires this year, down from number 19 last year. Kingdom posted an $8bn loss in 2008, and since then the company has sold assets to help pay down debt.