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Qatar reviewing London investments after TfL bans
its adverts – report
Ban linked to World Cup hosts’ human rights record
taken as message ‘Qatari business not welcome in London’, source tells FT
Nadeem
Badshah
Fri 25 Nov
2022 23.13 GMT
Qatar is
reviewing its investments in London after the city’s transport authority banned
the country’s adverts on buses, taxis and underground trains, it was reported.
The move by
Transport for London (TfL) is understood to be linked to concerns about the
World Cup hosts’ human rights record, stance on homosexuality and treatment of
migrant workers.
A person
involved in the Qatari review of London investments told the Financial Times
that TfL, which is chaired by the city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, contacted Q22, the
body overseeing the World Cup, and Qatar’s tourism authority this week to
inform them about the ban.
In
response, Qatar was “reviewing their current and future investments” in London
and was “considering investment opportunities in other UK cities and home
nations”, the person involved in the review told the newspaper.
The source
added that the TfL ban “has been interpreted as a message from the mayor’s
office that Qatari business is not welcome in London”.
The Gulf
state has become one of biggest investors in London through its sovereign
wealth fund.
Earlier
this month, the Observer reported that the state of Qatar alone, not counting
individual royals’ personal holdings, is the 10th largest landowner in the UK,
according to analysts at MSCI Real Assets.
The emirate
owns nearly 2.1m sq metres (23m sqft) of property in Britain.
Among the
properties in the portfolio of the Qatar Investment Authority are department
store Harrods in Knightsbridge; Britain’s tallest building, the Shard, which
was built with nearly £2bn of Qatari investment; Forbes House mansion; Chelsea
Barracks; and the Savoy and Grosvenor House hotels.
It is also a
co-owner of Canary Wharf and has a 20% stake in Heathrow airport.
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