Business Abroad: The New Mideast Money Man

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Today, Intra's investments range from potash extraction in the Dead Sea to Middle East Airlines (51% control), and Bedas is planning still more branches and affiliates in France, Italy, Brazil and Afri ca. Conservative Western financiers, un accustomed to the rough and tumble of Levantine business, are sometimes in clined to look askance at this headlong expansion and at the fact that Bedas, de spite the growing complexity of Intra's operations, continues to run it as a one-man show. But last week, as he hopped from Rome to Paris to London inspecting his empire, cocky Yusuf Bedas pooh-poohed any suggestion of overextension.

"Give me another twelve years," boomed he, "and Intra may double in size again."