Maan Abdelwahed Abdelmajid Al-Sanea was relatively little known outside the region until he bought a high-profile stake in HSBC in 2007 (GSN 804/10, 803/9). Al-Sanea, in his mid-50s, holds Kuwaiti and Saudi nationality. According to a Kuwaiti source, he grew up in Shamiya, a middle class suburb of Kuwait City. But his maternal family is the Al-Gosaibi, from Hofuf in eastern Saudi Arabia.