Home lists 100 Most Powerful Arabs 2023 Sheikh Sulaiman bin Abdulaziz AlRajhi Co-founder AlRajhi Bank Origin: Saudi Arabia Residence: Saudi Arabia Sector: Finance AlRajhi Bank, the financial institution that was co-founded by Sheikh Sulaiman in 1957, raised more than SAR5bn from the sale of some of its real estate loans to the Saudi Real Estate Refinance Company (SRC) in March. The SRC said the deal is the largest of its kind in Saudi Arabia. The bank’s full-year net profit surged by 16 per cent to SAR17.15bn in 2022 from SAR14.75bn the previous year. With SAR762.4bn in assets and a paid-up capital of SAR40bn, AlRajhi Bank is the world’s largest shariah-compliant bank with a distribution network of 514 branches in Saudi Arabia, 16 branches in Malaysia, 10 in Jordan and two in Kuwait. Sheikh Sulaiman announced in 2011 that he would donate the bulk of his fortune to charity, funding anti-hunger efforts and education in Saudi Arabia and transferred his nearly 20 per cent stake in the AlRajhi Bank to a charitable endowment that bears his name. Earlier in his life, he worked several odd jobs to make ends meet, including being a porter, collecting palm dates and being a wholesale seller of imported kerosene.