In which North African country was Mohammed Al-Fayed, owner of Harrods department store in London, born?
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Mohamed Al-Fayed Harrods
Mohamed Abdel Moneim Al-Fayed (Arabic: محمد عبد المنعم الفايد; born 27 January 1929) is an Egyptian business magnate. Fayed's business interests include ownership of Hôtel Ritz Paris and formerly Harrods Department Store, Knightsbridge. Al-Fayed sold his ownership of Fulham F.C. to Shahid Khan in 2013. 

Fayed has four siblings: Ali, Salah, Soaad and Safia. Fayed's eldest son, Dodi, from his first marriage to Samira Khashoggi, died in a car crash in Paris with Diana, Princess of Wales and driver Henri Paul on 31 August 1997. Fayed married Finnish socialite and former model Heini Wathén in 1985, with whom he has four children: Jasmine, Karim, Camilla, and Omar. In 2013, Fayed's wealth was estimated at US$1.4 billion, making him the 1,031st-richest person in the world in 2013. 

Early life

Born on 27 January 1929  in Bakos, Alexandria, Egypt,  as the eldest son of an Egyptian primary school teacher, Fayed's first entrepreneurial venture began at school where he sold home-made lemonade. 

He was married for two years, from 1954 to 1956, to Samira Kashoggi. Fayed worked for his wife's brother, Saudi Arabian arms-dealer and businessman, Adnan Khashoggi. 

Mohamed Fayed has called himself "Al-Fayed" since the early 1970s, and his two brothers, Ali and Saleh, also styled themselves "Al-Fayed" at the time of their acquisition of the House of Fraser in the 1980s, though by the late 1980s Ali and Saleh had reverted to calling themselves simply "Fayed". Fayed's addition of "Al-" to his name, which implies aristocratic origins,  has led to Private Eye nicknaming him the "Phoney Pharaoh". According to his biographer Tom Bower, Fayed also claimed to have come from a town named Fayed after his family. 

United Kingdom

Early business dealings

Fayed and his brothers founded a shipping company in Egypt before moving its headquarters to Genoa, Italy with additional offices in London. Around 1964 Fayed entered a close relationship with Haitian leader François Duvalier, known as 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, and became interested in the construction of a Fayed-Duvalier oil refinery in Haiti. He also associated with the geologist George de Mohrenschildt. Fayed terminated his stay in Haiti six months later when a sample of "crude oil" provided by Haitian associates proved to be low-grade molasses.

It was then that Fayed moved to England where he lived in central London. In the mid 1960s, Fayed met the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid al Makhtoum who entrusted Fayed with helping transform Dubai. Fayed introduced British companies like the Costain Group (of which he became a director and 30 percent shareholder), Bernard Sunley & Sons and Taylor Woodrow to the Emirate to carry out the required construction work. He also became a financial adviser to the then Sultan of Brunei Omar Ali Saifuddien III, in 1966.

Fayed set up IMS (International Marine Services) in 1968 in Dubai.

He briefly joined the board of the mining conglomerate Lonrho in 1975 but left after a disagreement. In 1979, Fayed bought The Ritz hotel in Paris, France for US$30 million. 

In 1984, Fayed and his brothers purchased a 30 percent stake in House of Fraser, a group that included the famous London store Harrods, from Roland 'Tiny' Rowland, the head of Lonrho. In 1985, he and his brothers bought the remaining 70 percent of House of Fraser for £615m. Rowland claimed the Fayed brothers had lied about their background and wealth and put pressure on the government to investigate them. A Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) inquiry into the Fayeds was launched. The DTI's subsequent report was critical, but no action was taken against the Fayeds, and while many believed the contents of the report, others felt it was politically motivated. 

In 1998, Rowland accused Fayed of stealing papers and jewels from his Harrods safe deposit box. Fayed was arrested, but the charges were dropped.  Rowland died in 1998. Fayed settled the dispute with a payment to his widow; he also sued the Metropolitan Police for false arrest in 2002, but lost the case. 

In 1994, House of Fraser went public, but Fayed retained private ownership of Harrods. He relaunched the humour publication Punch in 1996 but it folded again in 2002. Al Fayed unsuccessfully applied for British citizenship twice – once in 1994 and once in 1999.   It was suggested that the feud with Rowland contributed to Fayed's being refused British citizenship the first time. 

Cash-for-questions

In 1994, in what became known as the cash-for-questions affair, Fayed revealed the names of MPs he had paid to ask questions in parliament on his behalf, but who had failed to declare their fees. It saw the Conservative MPs Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith leave the government in disgrace, and a Committee on Standards in Public Life established to prevent such corruption occurring again. Fayed also revealed that the cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken had stayed for free at the Ritz Hotel in Paris at the same time as a group of Saudi arms dealers leading to Aitken's subsequent unsuccessful libel case and imprisonment for perjury.  During this period, from 1988 to February 1998,  Al-Fayed's spokesman was Michael Cole, a former BBC journalist,  although Cole's PR work for Al-Fayed did not cease in 1998.

Hamilton lost a subsequent libel action against Al-Fayed in December 1999  and a subsequent appeal against the verdict in December 2000.  The former MP has always denied that he was paid by Al-Fayed for asking questions in parliament. Hamilton's libel action related to a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary broadcast on 16 January 1997  in which Al-Fayed made claims that the MP had received up to £110,000 in cash and received other gratuities for asking parliamentary questions.  Hamilton's basis for his appeal was that the original verdict was invalid because Al-Fayed had paid £10,000 for documents stolen from the dustbins of Hamilton's legal representatives by Benjamin Pell,  also known as 'Benjy the Binman'.

In 2003, Fayed moved from Surrey, UK to Switzerland, alleging a breach in an agreement with Inland Revenue. In 2005, he moved back to Britain, saying that he "regards Britain as home". He moored a yacht in Monaco called the Sokar prior to selling it in 2014. 

Sale of Harrods

After previously denying that Harrods was for sale, Harrods was sold to Qatar Holdings, the sovereign wealth fund of the emirate of Qatar, on 10 May 2010. A fortnight previously, Fayed had stated that "People approach us from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar. Fair enough. But I put two fingers up to them. It is not for sale. This is not Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury's. It is a special place that gives people pleasure. There is only one Mecca." 

Harrods was sold for £1.5 billion. Fayed later revealed in an interview that he decided to sell Harrods following the difficulty in getting his dividend approved by the trustee of the Harrods pension fund. Fayed said "I'm here every day, I can't take my profit because I have to take a permission of those bloody idiots...I say is this right? Is this logic? Somebody like me? I run a business and I need to take bloody fucking trustee's permission to take my profit".  Fayed was appointed honorary chairman of Harrods, a position he was scheduled to hold for at least six months.

Scotland

In 1972, Fayed purchased the Balnagown estate in Easter Ross, Northern Scotland. From an initial twelve acres, Al-Fayed has since built the estate up to sixty five thousand acres.  Al-Fayed has invested more than £20 million in the estate, restored the 14th century pink Balnagown Castle, and created a tourist accommodation business. The Highlands of Scotland tourist board awarded Al-Fayed the "Freedom of the Highlands" in 2002, in recognition of his "outstanding contribution and commitment to the highlands."

As an Egyptian with links to Scotland, Al-Fayed was intrigued enough to fund a 2008 reprint of the 15th century chronicle Scotichronicon by Walter Bower. The Scotichronicon describes how Scota, a sister of the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen, fled her family and landed in Scotland, bringing with her the Stone of Scone. According to the chronicle, Scotland was later named in her honour. The tale is disputed by modern historians.  Al-Fayed later declared that "The Scots are originally Egyptians and that's the truth." 

In 2009, Al-Fayed revealed that he was a supporter of Scottish independence from the United Kingdom, announcing to the Scots that "It's time for you to waken up and detach yourselves from the English and their terrible politicians...whatever help is needed for Scotland to regain its independence, I will provide it...when you Scots regain your freedom, I am ready to be your president."

Charity

Fayed set up the Al Fayed Charitable Foundation in 1987 aiming to help children with life-limiting conditions and children living in poverty. The charity works mainly with charities and hospices for disabled and neglected children in the UK, Thailand and Mongolia.

Some of the charities with which it works include Francis House Hospice in Manchester, Great Ormond Street Hospital and ChildLine. In 1998, Al Fayed bought Princess Diana's old boarding school in Kent and helped found the New School at West Heath for traumatised children there. 

In 2011, Mohamed Al-Fayed's daughter Camilla, who has worked as an ambassador for the charity for eight years,  opened the newly refurbished Zoe’s Place baby hospice in West Derby, Liverpool. 

Fulham F.C.

Al-Fayed bought the freehold of West London professional football club Fulham F.C. for £6.25 million in 1997.  The club was purchased via Bill Muddyman's Muddyman Group. His long-term aim was that Fulham would become a FA Premier League side within five years. In 2001, Fulham took the First Division (now Football League Championship) under manager Jean Tigana, winning 100 points and scoring over 100 goals in the season. This meant that Al-Fayed had achieved his objective of Fulham being a Premiership club a year ahead of schedule. By 2002, Fulham were competing in European football, winning the Intertoto Cup and challenging in the UEFA Cup. Fulham reached the final of the 2009–10 UEFA Europa League and continued to play in the Premiership throughout Al-Fayed's tenure as owner (which ended in 2013).

Fulham temporarily left Craven Cottage while it was being upgraded to meet modern safety standards. There were fears that Fulham would not return to the Cottage, after it was revealed that Al-Fayed had sold the first right to build on the ground to a property development firm. 

Fulham lost a legal case against former manager Tigana in 2004 after Al-Fayed had wrongly alleged that Tigana had overpaid more than £7m for new players and had negotiated transfers in secret.  In 2009 Al-Fayed revealed that he was in favour of a wage cap for footballers, and criticised the management of The Football Association and Premier League as "run by donkeys who don't understand business, who are dazzled by money." 

A statue of the American entertainer Michael Jackson was unveiled by Al-Fayed in April 2011 at Craven Cottage In 1999 Jackson had attended a league game against Wigan Athletic at the stadium. Following criticisms of the statue, Al-Fayed said "If some stupid fans don't understand and appreciate such a gift this guy gave to the world they can go to hell. I don't want them to be fans."  The statue was removed by the club's new owners in 2013; Al-Fayed blamed the club's subsequent relegation from the Premier League on the 'bad luck' brought by its removal. Al-Fayed then donated the statue to the National Football Museum. 

Under Al-Fayed Fulham F.C. was owned by Mafco Holdings, based in the tax haven of Bermuda. Mafco Holdings is owned by Al-Fayed and his family. By 2011, Al-Fayed had loaned Fulham F.C. £187 million in interest free loans.  In July 2013, it was announced that Al-Fayed had sold the club to American businessman Shahid Khan, who owns the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars. 

Dodi's death 

Romance with Diana, Princess of Wales

Lady Diana Spencer was born in 1961, and married the heir to the British throne, Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1981, becoming the Princess of Wales. Diana was an international celebrity and a frequent visitor to Harrods in the 1980s. Al-Fayed and Dodi first met Diana and Charles when they were introduced at a polo tournament in July 1986, that had been sponsored by Harrods. (HighBeam Research subscription required)

Diana and Charles divorced in 1996. Diana was hosted by Al-Fayed in the south of France in the summer of 1997, with her two sons, the Princes William and Harry. (HighBeam Research subscription required) For the holiday, Fayed bought a 195 ft yacht, the Jonikal (later renamed the Sokar). 
Dodi and Diana later began a private cruise on the Jonikal and paparazzi photographs of the couple in an embrace were published. Diana's friend, the journalist Richard Kay, confirmed that Diana was involved in "her first serious romance" since her divorce. (HighBeam Research subscription required)

Dodi and Diana went on a second private cruise on the Jonikal in the third week of August, and returned from Sardinia to Paris on 30 August. The couple privately dined at the Ritz later that day, after the behaviour of the press caused them to cancel a restaurant reservation, they then planned to spend the night at Dodi's apartment near the Arc de Triomphe.  In an attempt to deceive the paparazzi, a decoy car left the front of the hotel, while Diana and Dodi departed at speed in a Mercedes-Benz W140 driven by chauffeur Henri Paul from the rear of the hotel. Five minutes later, the car crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel, killing Paul and Dodi. Diana died later in hospital. Fayed arrived in Paris the next day, and viewed Dodi's body, which was returned to Britain for an Islamic funeral. (HighBeam Research subscription required)

Conspiracy theories

From February 1998, Al-Fayed claimed that the crash was a result of a conspiracy,  and later contended that the crash was orchestrated by MI6 on the instructions of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.  His claims that the crash was a result of a conspiracy were dismissed by a French judicial investigation, but Fayed appealed against this verdict. A libel action was brought against Al-Fayed by Neil Hamilton (see above). During the questioning of one day of the hearing, which referred to Al-Fayed's conspiracy theories, writer Martyn Gregory and a journalist from ITN counted 70 instances of Al-Fayed saying "I don't know" or "I can't remember" to questions relating to the tragedy. 

The British Operation Paget, a Metropolitan police inquiry which concluded in 2006, also found no evidence of a conspiracy.  To Operation Paget, Al-Fayed made 175 "conspiracy claims". 

An inquest headed by Lord Justice Scott Baker into the deaths of Diana and Dodi began at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, on 2 October 2007 and lasted for six months. It was a continuation of the original inquest that had begun in 2004. 

At the Scott Baker inquest Fayed accused the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, her sister, and numerous others, of plotting to kill the Princess of Wales.  Their motive, he claimed, was that they could not tolerate the idea of the Princess marrying a Muslim. 

Al-Fayed first claimed that the Princess was pregnant to the Daily Express in May 2001, and that he was the only person who had been told of this news. Witnesses at the inquest who said the Princess was not pregnant, and could not have been, were part of the conspiracy according to Al-Fayed.  Fayed's testimony at the inquest was roundly condemned in the press as being farcical. Members of the British Government's Intelligence and Security Committee accused Fayed of turning the inquest into a 'circus' and called for it to be ended maturely.  Lawyers representing Al-Fayed later accepted at the inquest that there was no direct evidence that either the Duke of Edinburgh or MI6, had been involved in any murder conspiracy involving Diana or Dodi.  A few days before Al-Fayed's appearance, John Macnamara, a former senior detective at Scotland Yard and Al-Fayed's investigator for five years from 1997, was forced to admit on 14 February 2008 that he had no evidence to suggest foul play, except for the assertions Al-Fayed had made to him.  His admissions also related to the lack of evidence for Al-Fayed's claims about the alleged pregnancy of the Princess and the couple's supposed engagement.

The jury verdict, given on 7 April 2008, was that Diana and Dodi had been "unlawfully killed" through the grossly negligent driving of chauffeur Henri Paul, who was intoxicated, and the pursuing vehicles. 

Lawyers for Al-Fayed also accepted that there was no evidence to support the assertion that Diana was illegally embalmed in order to cover up a pregnancy, a "pregnancy" which they accepted, could not be established by any medical evidence. They also accepted that there was no evidence to support the assertion the French emergency and medical services had played any role in a conspiracy to harm Diana. Following the Baker inquest, Al-Fayed said that he was abandoning his campaign to prove that Diana and Dodi were murdered in a conspiracy, and said that he would accept the verdict of the jury. 

Al-Fayed financially supported Unlawful Killing (2011), a documentary film accused of presenting his version of events.   The film was not formally released as a result of legal problems. 

Business interests 

Al-Fayed's business interests include:

* Hôtel Ritz Paris
* Balnagowan Castle & Estates
* HJW Geospatial
* Turnbull & Asser
Al-Fayed's major business purchases have included:

* Ritz Hotel Paris (1979, )
* House of Fraser Group, including Harrods (1985, £615 million; sold 2010, £1.5 billion).  
* Fulham (1997, £30 million; sold 2013 ).
* After the death of Wallis Simpson, Fayed took over the lease of the Villa Windsor in Paris, the former home of the Duchess of Windsor and her husband, the Duke of Windsor, previously Edward VIII. Harrods is an upmarket department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. The Harrods brand also applies to other enterprises undertaken by the Harrods group of companies including Harrods Bank, Harrods Estates, Harrods Aviation and Air Harrods, and to Harrods Buenos Aires, sold by Harrods in 1922 and closed , with plans announced to reopen in 2013. 

The store occupies a 5 acre site and has 330 departments covering one million square feet () of retail space.

The Harrods motto is Omnia Omnibus Ubique, which is Latin for 'All Things for All People, Everywhere'. Several of its departments, including the seasonal Christmas department and the Food Halls, are well known.

History 

At the age of 25, Charles Henry Harrod first established his business in 1824. The business was located south of the River Thames in Southwark. The premises were located at 228 Borough High Street. He ran this business, variously listed as a draper, mercer, and a haberdasher, certainly until 1831.    During 1825, the business was listed as 'Harrod and Wicking, Linen Drapers, Retail',  but this partnership was dissolved at the end of that year.  His first grocery business appears to be as ‘Harrod & Co.Grocers’ at 163 Upper Whitecross Street, Clerkenwell, E.C.1., in 1832. 

In 1834 in London's East End, he established a wholesale grocery in Stepney, at 4, Cable Street, with a special interest in tea. In 1849, to escape the vice of the inner city and to capitalise on trade to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in nearby Hyde Park, Harrod took over a small shop in the district of Brompton, on the site of the current store. Beginning in a single room employing two assistants and a messenger boy, Harrod's son Charles Digby Harrod built the business into a thriving retail operation selling medicines, perfumes, stationery, fruits and vegetables. Harrods rapidly expanded, acquired the adjoining buildings, and employed one hundred people by 1880.

However, the store's booming fortunes were reversed in early December 1883, when it burnt to the ground. Remarkably, in view of this calamity, Charles Harrod fulfilled all of his commitments to his customers to make Christmas deliveries that year—and made a record profit in the process. In short order, a new building was built on the same site, and soon Harrods extended credit for the first time to its best customers, among them Oscar Wilde, Lillie Langtry, Ellen Terry, Charlie Chaplin, Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Sigmund Freud, A. A. Milne, and many members of the British Royal Family.

On Wednesday, 16 November 1898, Harrods debuted England's first "moving staircase" (escalator) in their Brompton Road stores; the device was actually a woven leather conveyor belt-like unit with a mahogany and "silver plate-glass" balustrade.  Nervous customers were offered brandy at the top to revive them after their 'ordeal'.

The department store was purchased by the Fayed brothers in 1985.

2010 sale

Following denial that it was for sale, Harrods was sold to Qatar Holdings, the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar in May 2010. A fortnight previously, chairman of Harrods since 1985, Mohamed Al-Fayed, had stated that "People approach us from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar. Fair enough. But I put two fingers up to them. It is not for sale. This is not Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury's. It is a special place that gives people pleasure. There is only one Mecca." 

The sale was concluded in the early hours of 8 May, when Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani came to London to finalise the deal, saying that the acquisition of Harrods would add "much value" to the investment portfolio of Qatar Holdings while his deputy, Hussain Ali Al-Abdulla, called it a "landmark transaction".  A spokesman for Mohamed Al-Fayed said "in reaching the decision to retire, [Fayed] wished to ensure that the legacy and traditions that he has built up in Harrods would be continued." Harrods was sold for £1.5 billion; half of the sale will be used to pay bank debts of £625 million. 

Al-Fayed later revealed in an interview that he decided to sell Harrods following the difficulty in getting his dividend approved by the trustee of the Harrods pension fund. Al-Fayed said "I'm here every day, I can't take my profit because I have to take a permission of those bloody idiots...I say is this right? Is this logic? Somebody like me? I run a business and I need to take the trustee's permission to take my profit."  Al-Fayed was appointed honorary chairman of Harrods, a position he will hold for at least six months.

Significant event timeline

*1824: Charles Henry Harrod starts his first business as a draper, at 228, Borough High Street, Southwark, London.
*1834: Charles Henry Harrod (1799–1885) founds a wholesale grocery in Stepney, East London
*1849: Harrods moves to the Knightsbridge area of London, near Hyde Park
*1861: Harrods undergoes a transformation when it was taken over by Harrod's son, Charles Digby Harrod (1841–1905)
*1883: On 6 December, fire guts the shop buildings, giving the family the opportunity to rebuild on a grander scale
*1889: Charles Digby Harrod retires, and Harrods shares are floated on the London Stock Exchange under the name Harrod's Stores Limited
*1905: Begun in 1894, the present building is completed to the design of architect Charles William Stephens.
*1914: Harrods opens its first and only foreign branch in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It became independent of Harrods in the late 1940s but still traded under the Harrods name usable only in Argentina Harrods Buenos Aires.
*1914: Harrods buys the Regent Street department store Dickins & Jones.
*1919: Harrods buys the Manchester department store, Kendals; it took on the Harrods name for a short time in the 1920s, but the name was changed back to Kendals following protests from staff and customers.
*1920: Harrods buys London department store Swan & Edgar and Manchester retailer Walter Carter Ltd.
*1928: Harrods buys London department store D H Evans.
*1946: Harrods buys the Sheffield department store, John Walsh.
*1949: Harrods buys William Henderson & Co, a Liverpool department store.
*1955: Harrods buys Birmingham department store Rackhams.
*1959: The British department store holding company, House of Fraser, buys Harrods, fighting off competition from Debenhams and United Drapery Stores.
*1969: Christian the lion was bought by John Rendall and Anthony 'Ace' Bourke. The lion was set free in Kenya after reaching maturity.
*1983: A terrorist attack by the Provisional IRA outside the Brompton store kills six people.
*1985: The Fayed brothers buy House of Fraser including Harrods Store for .
*1986: The small town of Otorohanga in New Zealand briefly changed its name to Harrodsville in response to legal threats made by Mohamed Al-Fayed against a person with the surname of Harrod, who had used the name "Harrod's" for his shop.
*1990: A Harrods shop opens on board the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, which was then owned by the Walt Disney Company. Harrods gives right to Duty Free International for a licence to operate a Harrods Signature Shop at Toronto Pearson International Airport's Terminal 3 (closed shortly after) 
*1994: The relationship between House of Fraser and Harrods is severed. Harrods remains under the ownership of the Fayed family, and House of Fraser is floated on the stock exchange.
*1997: An English court issues an injunction to restrain the Buenos Aires Harrods store from trading under the Harrods name.
*2000: A Harrods shop opens on board the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, owned by the Cunard Line.
*2006: The Harrods "102" shop opens opposite the main shop in Brompton Road; it features concessions like Krispy Kreme and Yo! Sushi, as well as florists, a herbalist, a masseur, and an oxygen spa.
*2006: Omar Fayed, Mohamed's youngest son, joins the Harrods board. 
*2010: Fayed announces he has sold Harrods to the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). It has been reported that the QIA paid  for the Knightsbridge store, in a deal signed in the early hours of 8 May 2010.
*2010: Harrods looks at the possibility of expanding to China and opening a new shop in Shanghai. Michael Ward, managing director of Harrods, said, "There are other areas of the world where we could operate profitably." The number of Chinese shoppers visiting Harrods is increasing, and the average spent by a Chinese shopper is three times that of any other nationality. 
*2012: The figurative sculptures that once adorned the Harrods food hall are consigned for sale at West Middlesex Auction Rooms, The two Mermaids supporting a giant Clam and the Stag and Boar sheltering under an English Oak are purchased by Greaves & Thomas for inclusion in an elaborate fountain for Ryde, Isle of Wight.

Products and services

The shop's 330 departments offer a wide range of products and services. Products on offer include clothing for women, men, children and infants, electronics, jewellery, sporting gear, bridal trousseau, pets and pet accessories, toys, food and drink, health and beauty items, packaged gifts, stationery, housewares, home appliances, furniture, and much more.

A representative sample of shop services includes 32 restaurants, serving everything from high tea to tapas to pub food to haute cuisine; a personal shopping-assistance programme known as "By Appointment"; a watch repair service; a tailor; a dispensing pharmacy; a beauty spa and salon; a barbers shop; Harrods Financial Services; Harrods Bank; Ella Jade Bathroom Planning and Design Service; private events planning and catering; food delivery; a wine steward; bespoke picnic hampers and gift boxes; bespoke cakes; bespoke fragrance formulations; and Bespoke Arcades  machines.

Up to 300,000 customers visit the shop on peak days, comprising the highest proportion of customers from non-English speaking countries of any department store in London. More than five thousand staff from over fifty different countries work at Harrods.

As of 15 October 2009, Harrods Bank has started selling gold bars and coins that customers can buy "off the shelf". The gold products range from  to , and can be purchased within Harrods Bank. They also offer storage services, as well as the ability to sell back gold to Harrods in the future. 

Royal warrants

Harrods was the holder of royal warrants from:
*Queen Elizabeth II (Provisions and Household Goods)
*The Duke of Edinburgh (Outfitters)
*The Prince of Wales (Outfitters and Saddlers)
*Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (China and Glass)

In August 2010, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph, chairman Mohamed Al-Fayed revealed that he had burnt Harrods royal warrants, after taking them down in 2000. Harrods had held the Royal warrants since 1910. Describing the warrants as a "curse", Al-Fayed claimed that business had tripled since their removal. The Duke of Edinburgh removed his warrant in January 2000,  and the other warrants were removed from Harrods by Al-Fayed in December, pending their five-yearly review. The Duke of Edinburgh had been banned from Harrods by Al-Fayed.  Film of the burning of the warrants in 2009 was shown in the final scene of Unlawful Killing, a film funded by Al-Fayed and directed by Keith Allen.

Memorials

Since the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed, Mohamed Al-Fayed's son, two memorials commissioned by Al-Fayed have been erected inside Harrods to the couple. The first, located at the base of the Egyptian Escalator, was unveiled on 12 April 1998, consisting of photographs of the two behind a pyramid-shaped display that holds a wine glass smudged with lipstick from Diana's last dinner as well as what is described as an engagement ring Dodi purchased the day before they died.Rick Steves, [http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/britain/london.htm Getting Up To Snuff In London], /www.ricksteves.com.

The second memorial, unveiled in 2005 and located by the escalator at door three is entitled "Innocent Victims", a bronze statue of the two dancing on a beach beneath the wings of an albatross, a bird said to symbolise the "Holy Spirit".[http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/09/01/diana.dodi.statue/index.html Harrods unveils Diana, Dodi statue], CNN.com, 1 September 2005. The sculpture was created by William Mitchell, a close friend of Al-Fayed and artistic design advisor to Harrods for 40 years. Al-Fayed said he wanted to keep the pair's "spirit alive" through the statue. 

After the death of Michael Jackson, Al-Fayed announced that they had already been discussing plans to build a memorial statue.  This was unveiled in April 2011 at the rear of Craven Cottage football ground (Fulham F.C.) but removed in September 2013 on the orders of new club owner Shahid Khan. 

Dress code

From 1989, Harrods has had a dress code policy  and has turned away several people who it believed were not dressed appropriately. These included a soldier in uniform,  a scout troop,  a woman with a mohican hair cut,  a 15 stone woman  and FC Shakhtar Donetsk's first team for wearing tracksuits. 

Size

The store occupies a 5 acre site and has over one million square feet () of selling space in over 330 departments making it the biggest department store in Europe. The UK's second-biggest shop, Selfridges, Oxford Street, is a little over half the size with 540000 sqft of selling space.,  while the third largest, Allders of Croydon had 500000 sqft of retail space. By comparison Europe's second-largest department store the KaDeWe in Berlin has a retail space of 650000 sqft.

Criticism

Harrods and Mohamed Al-Fayed were criticised for selling real animal fur with regular protests organised outside Harrods.  Harrods is the only department store in Britain that has continued to sell fur.  Harrods was sharply criticised in 2004 by the Hindu community for marketing a line of feminine underwear (designed by Roberto Cavalli) which featured the images of Indian goddesses. The line was eventually withdrawn and formal apologies were made.   Harrods has been criticised by Guardian journalist Sali Hughes as "deeply sexist" for making female employees wear six kinds of makeup at all times without requiring this of male employees. 

Asma al-Assad, the wife of the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, used an alias to shop at Harrods despite economic sanctions imposed by the European Union that froze funds belonging to her and her husband. 

In March 2014, a parody story in Middle East satirical website The Pan-Arabia Enquirer claimed that following a dispute among Gulf countries, Harrods' Qatari owners had banned shoppers from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia from entering the store. The article was reported as fact on a cover story in Pakistan's The News International. 

Crime

Due to its status and expensive nature of its merchandise, Harrods has been connected with several high profile crimes over the years, including the 2012 theft of a £24,000 designer dress,  part of what was referred to as a '£240,000 Harrods crime spree'. 

Litigation

Harrods Ltd v. Harrods Limousine Ltd

On 27 October 2008, Harrods Ltd applied to the Company Names Tribunal under s.69(1)(b) Companies Act 2006 for a change of name of Harrods Limousine Ltd, which had been registered at Companies House since 14 November 2007.

The application went un-defended by the respondent and the adjudicator ordered on 16 January 2009 that Harrods Limousine Ltd must change their name within one month. Additionally the respondent was ordered not to cause or permit any steps to be taken to register another company with an offending name which could interfere, due to its similarity, with the goodwill of the applicant.

Harrods Limousine Ltd was also ordered to pay Harrods' costs.
EGY Arab Republic of Egypt A .R . EGYPT The Arab Republic of Egypt Eygpt Etymology of Egypt مصر Kemmet Gift of the Nile Arab Republic Of Egypt Names of Egypt Miṣr A .R . Egypt Eytp National identity of Egyptians Jumhuriyat Misr al'Arabiyah Eypt Egyptian Republic Ejipt Name of Egypt Egipto Kimet جمهوريّة مصرالعربيّة Egypte Egypt (name) Egypt جمهورية مصرالعربية A.R. Egypt Republic of Eygpt Égypte Second Egyptian Republic Egipt ISO 3166-1:EG Egypt info
names of egypt jumhuriyat misr al arabiyah eytp iso 3166 1 eg egypt r egypt eygpt kimet name of egypt جمهورية مصرالعربية arab republic of egypt egypt name gift of nile kemmet miṣr egipto جمهوريّة مصرالعربيّة egy egypt info egyptian republic egypte eypt ejipt national identity of egyptians égypte etymology of egypt egipt مصر second egyptian republic republic of eygpt
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Egypt
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