Editing Mohamed Al-Fayed (section)

===House of Fraser group and Harrods===
In 1984, Al-Fayed and his brother Ali, purchased a 30 per cent stake for £138 million<ref name="maureen-orth"/> in the [[House of Fraser]], a group that included the [[Knightsbridge]] department store [[Harrods]], from Tiny Rowland, the head of Lonrho. Lonrho had been pursuing control of the House of Fraser since 1977, and had been prevented from acquiring the company by the [[Monopolies and Mergers Commission]] in a 1981 ruling, although its purchase of ''[[The Observer]]'' was approved.<ref name="set-record">{{Cite news|date=16 May 2010|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/16/observer-harrods-takeover-mohamed-fayed|title=Time to set the record straight on the Observer and the Harrods takeover|work=The Guardian|location=London|first=Donald|last=Trelford}}</ref>

After his purchase of the House of Fraser shares, Al-Fayed demanded that Rowland leave the board of House of Fraser,<ref name="maureen-orth"/> and courted the chairman of House of Fraser, Roland Smith, who received a retroactive bonus once Al-Fayed had acquired the company.<ref name="maureen-orth"/> The [[Secretary of State for Trade and Industry]], [[John Biffen]], ruled that Lonrho must give an undertaking not to buy any more shares in the House of Fraser, a ruling that left Roland "incandescent".<ref name="set-record"/> Following the ruling Rowland began to sell shares to Al-Fayed, whom he had met while Al-Fayed was briefly a director of Lonrho. Rowland later said that "I knew that Tootsie (as Rowland called Al-Fayed) could never afford to purchase the whole of House of Fraser."<ref name="set-record"/>

Al-Fayed bought the remaining 70 per cent of the House of Fraser in early 1985 for £615 million, sparking a bitter feud between him and Rowland. The former editor of ''The Observer'', [[Donald Trelford]], believes that Rowland was "...certainly motivated in his vendetta against Al-Fayed by outrage at having been conned. But he was also convinced that his shareholders had been cheated."<ref name="set-record"/> Rowland felt his shareholders had been cheated as he believed Al-Fayed had used a power of attorney that he held for the [[Sultan of Brunei]], then the richest man in the world, to fund the purchase.<ref name="set-record"/> Rowland's bitterness also came from his belief that Al-Fayed had lied to the British government about the sources of his wealth, and that the government had failed to investigate Al-Fayed's credentials and had approved the sale without a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (while Lonrho had faced three inquiries under the commission), and that the new trade secretary, [[Norman Tebbit]], had prevented Lonrho from bidding while Al-Fayed's deal went through.<ref name="set-record"/>