Mohamed Abdel Moneim Al-Fayed (; 27 January 1929 – 30 August 2023) was an Egyptian businessman whose residence and primary business interests were in the United Kingdom from the mid-1960s. His business interests included ownership of the Hôtel Ritz Paris, Harrods department store and Fulham Football Club. At the time of his death in 2023, Forbes estimated his wealth at US$2 billion. Since his death, Al-Fayed has been accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and assault.

Fayed was married to Samira Khashoggi from 1954 to 1956. They had a son, Dodi, who was in a romantic relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales, when they both died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. Fayed falsely claimed that the crash was orchestrated by MI6 on the instructions of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. In 2011, Fayed financially supported an unreleased documentary film Unlawful Killing, that presented his version of events.

From 1995 onwards, Fayed was the subject of media scrutiny and investigations into allegations of sexist and discriminatory practices he mandated at Harrods, of sexual harassment and assault. Early media scrutiny of sexual misconduct allegations against Al-Fayed was curtailed by his frequent threats of litigation.

Harrods is a Grade II listed luxury department store on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It was designed by C. W. Stephens for Charles Digby Harrod, and opened in 1905; it replaced the first store on the grounds founded by his father Charles Henry Harrod in 1849, which burned down in 1881. The store spans 1,100,000 square feet (100,000 m²) of selling space, making it the largest department store in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Harrods is one of the most famous department stores worldwide, attracting 15 million visitors annually as of 2023.

The original holding company, Harrod's Stores Limited, was formed and began trading on the London Stock Exchange in 1889. It was acquired by and merged into the House of Fraser in 1959, which itself was acquired by the Fayed brothers and became a privately held company in 1985. When the House of Fraser was relisted on the stock exchange, the Harrods business was split off to remain privately held in 1994. The present-day legal entity, the Harrods Group, was established by the Fayed brothers in 2006. It was sold to the Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, in 2010.

History

In 1824, at the age of 25, Charles Henry Harrod established a business at 228 Borough High Street in Southwark.