Naguib Sawiris

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Naguib Sawiris

Naguib Sawiris (also Naguib Sawires , Arabic نجيب ساويرس, DMG Naǧīb Sāwīris ; Born June 15, 1954 in Tahta , Egypt ) is an Egyptian billionaire . He is the CEO and largest shareholder of the Egyptian mobile communications company Orascom TMT , which operates in several countries in Africa , the Middle East and South Korea . He also owns an Egyptian television station. His family built the Al-Guna holiday resort north of Hurghada on the Red Sea . As a result of the 2011 revolution , he and other comrades-in-arms founded the secular-liberal party of the Free Egyptians .

Life

Naguib Sawiris was born in Cairo as the eldest son of Onsi Sawiris . He has two younger brothers named Samih (* 1957) and Nassef (* 1961). The family came from the Upper Egyptian land nobility and belongs to the Coptic Church, the Christian minority. She is one of the richest families in the Middle East. His father Onsi Sawiris, who was born in 1930, was the founder and head of the largest Egyptian group of companies, Orascom , which started with a small construction company in 1950. In 1960 the father emigrated to Libya after the Sawiris companies were nationalized under General Gamal Abdel Nasser . He got rich as a building contractor in Libya and only returned after dictator Anwar Sadat took power in 1970. Sawiris got involved in a number of companies that were privatized under Sadat's successor Husni Mubarak , which brought the family company high financial growth. In just a few years, the family business on the Nile became Egypt's largest private employer. Onsi Sawiris finally divided the group between his three sons.

Naguib Sawiris, like his two brothers, has a German educational background . He attended the German Protestant High School in Cairo and later studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich . He underscores his ties to Germany through his work as President of the German-Arab Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Cairo.

The breakthrough came in 1998 when Egypt privatized the mobile phone licenses and Orascom acquired the first license in a consortium. Naguib Sawiris formed Orascom Telecom into the country's largest wireless operator and merged Orascom Telecom with the Russian wireless operator Vimpelcom to form Global Telecom Holding . In the summer of 2005 he bought 65 percent of the Italian mobile operator Wind for 13 billion euros from the Italian energy supplier ENEL through the holding company Weather Investments . On Forbes magazine's list of the richest people in the world , Sawiris ranks 550th with a net worth of $ 4.1 billion. Sawiris acquired nearly 20% of the Australian-listed gold mining company Evolution Mining and nearly 20% of the Toronto-listed Endeavor Mining, which operates gold mines in West Africa. The new company headquarters Nile-City-Towers with its high-rise towers crowned by four golden domes became a landmark of Cairo.

In 2007 a fundamentalist Egyptian sheikh issued a fatwa against Sawiris because he is said to have made derogatory comments on wearing headscarves in the context of the headscarf debate .

He was one of the first of Egypt's business elite to venture out of cover in February 2011 and publicly call on Hosni Mubarak to resign. He was one of the most prominent members of the Council of Wise Men , which mediated between the government, the military leadership and the opposition during the hectic transition phase from the end of January. In the course of the Egyptian Revolution, he founded the secular-liberal party of the Free Egyptians in April 2011 to stop politics and society from being appropriated by the conservative Islamist parties, the Freedom and Justice Party and the Party of Light . After the Muslim Brotherhood came to power , Sawiris temporarily left the country in early 2013. He returned to Cairo at the beginning of May 2013, but did not give up his opposition stance. According to Middle East expert Stephan Roll from the Berlin Science and Politics Foundation (SWP), Naguib Sawiris admitted that he had provided money and money to the opposition activists from Tamarod (in German: Rebellion), who organized mass protests against President Mohammed Morsi at the end of June 2013 Logistics supported. On July 3, 2013, the military took power. "Established interest groups had apparently worked towards the overthrow of the Morsi administration - as did most of Egypt's business elite," commented Stephan Roll.

Sawiris is married and has four children. In addition to his native Arabic, he speaks English, German and French. Naguib tried to promote young academics in various foundations. In October 2012, the Technical University of Berlin opened a campus in Gouna , which is largely financed by the founder of the place and the former student of the Technical University Berlin, his brother Samih Sawiris.

Establishing your own state

In the wake of the refugee crisis in Europe and the Middle East , at the end of October 2015, he offered to buy an island in the Mediterranean and build a state there for the refugees. He explained his plans on Twitter: "Greece or Italy will sell me an island, I will proclaim independence, accommodate the migrants and give them jobs as they build their new country."

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/management/aeggypt-das-firmenimperium-der-sawiris-famliie/3826134.html
  2. ↑ forbes.com: List of billionaires
  3. ^ Radiovaticana.org: Fatwa for Coptic Billionaire
  4. ↑ welt.de: Egypt's Copts are losing their hope
  5. ^ A b Stephan Roll: Egypt's business elite after Mubarak. A powerful actor between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, SWP study . Ed .: Science and Politics Foundation. Berlin July 2013, p. 27 .
  6. ↑ blick.ch: Sawiris brother wants to buy island for refugees
  7. ↑ welt.de: Billionaire wants to buy refugees Mediterranean island
  8. ↑ Naguib Sawiris on Twitter. In: Twitter. Retrieved October 29, 2015 : "Greece or Italy sell me an island, ill call its independence and host the migrants and provide jobs for them building their new country"
personal data
SURNAME Sawiris, Naguib
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sawires, Naguib
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Egyptian entrepreneur and CEO of the telecommunications company Orascom
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Tahta , Egypt