Wall Street Financiers Queue Up for a Chance at Billions in Saudi Oil Cash

At exactly 6:19 last Tuesday evening, in a gold-trimmed hallway snaking off the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh, a lesson emerged in money, power and what Arabs call wasta, or influence.The scene was opened by Marc Rowan, the private equity billionaire, pacing the carpet leading up the unremarkably named Meeting Room B — where a few minutes earlier chairs had been arranged in a semicircle.Mr.Rowan, clad in a neat suit rather than his usual sweaters, was 11 minutes early — he actually doubled back a few times, apparently unwilling to arrive first — but was soon followed by a dozen or so titans of technology and finance, including top executives of the Carlyle Group, BlackRock, Citi and Standard Chartered, and founders of the giant hedge funds Bridgewater Associates and Third Point.Once amassed, they were whisked en masse by Saudi security to a dinner in Diriyah, the ancestral home of the al-Saud family, at the farm of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman — who was accused of organizing the murder of a dissident journalist six years earlier, and of the imprisonment, torture and shakedown of his own family members during what his government called an anticorruption operation in this very same Ritz.If that had made him an international pariah, the promenade of some of the biggest names in international business to his dinner table was a reminder that he is back in favor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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