From the Saudi prince who is a stock-market heavyweight to a company that sells high-end car replicas, The Daily Beast brings you the best business and finance longreads from the week of March 22.

How Promontory Financial Became Banking's Shadow RegulatorJeff Horwitz and Maria Aspan, The American Banker

Founded by a former senior bank regulator, Promontory Financial holds a unique place in the financial regulatory world. Two thirds of its senior staff are former regulators, but it’s not a lobbying group or law firm. Promontory is something else, former regulators who help banks comply with—and predict— what their regulators do.

The Stockholder in the SandWilliam D. Cohan, Vanity Fair

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal makes big investments: he’s the second biggest shareholder in News Corp., has significant chunks of Twitter and Apple, owns luxury hotels all over the world. But it’s his smallest investment that’s garnered him the most notoriety: “a roving band of court jesters” that happen to all be …dwarves.

Banks Are Too Big to Fail Say ... Conservatives? David Dayen, The American Prospect

Will a scattered group of conservative academics, banking regulators, senators, and think-tankers turn the Republican party into an enemy of Wall Street?

Meet The Internet Frauds Who Want To Sell You A Top Gear-Endorsed $49,000 Bugatti Patrick George, Jalopnik

Want a replica Ferrari for $38,000? Super Replica says they can get you one, but do any cars actually come out of this Panama-based company? And did Steven Spielberg really endorse it?

Small and mid-sized banks face interest-rate struggles Tim McLaughlin, Reuters

With interest rates at rock bottom since the onset of the financial crisis, everyone knows they have to come back up … eventually. And it might be small banks that get hit the hardest when they finally rise.