Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who’s the financial force behind Abu Dhabi International Group and clearly endowed with more money than sense, lost £440m of his investment in Barclays Bank on Friday as the bank’s shares plunged 25 per cent.
The sheikh, who raised his stake in the bank to 16.3 per cent last November as Barclays was forced to raise more capital, is also the prime mover behind the bid to sign Brazilian footballer Kaka from A.C.Milan for his new club Manchester City.
This time for a mere £108m.
The sheikh must think his largesse is going to make him both more powerful and more popular on the world stage.
In fact it makes him like a middle eastern Del Boy who has just won the lottery.