Onsi Sawiris

Onsi Sawiris (born January 2, 1930 in Sohag , † June 29, 2021 in el-Guna ) (also Unsi Sawires , Arabic أنسي ساويرس, DMG Unsī Sāwīris ) was an Egyptian businessman and founder of the largest Egyptian group of companies, Orascom .

Life

Onsi Sawiris was the son of a lawyer from Upper Egypt. During his studies in agriculture or engineering, he founded a construction company with some friends in 1950 and initially made a fortune. After the military coup in Egypt in 1952 under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the introduction of Arab socialism , Sawiris was expropriated and his construction companies were nationalized in 1961 . Sawiris went to Libya and founded a new construction company, which he after the seizure of power by Muammar Gaddafi lost.

In 1972 he returned to Egypt and founded Orascom with five employees. The group of companies is involved in tourism development , telecommunications , in the construction industry and in other business areas. In the 1990s, Onsi Sawiris was one of the regime-related entrepreneurs who benefited from the economic policies of Egyptian President Husni Mubarak . "Through unofficial connections to political decisions, they had privileged access to public contracts," according to a 2007 study by the Berlin Foundation for Science and Politics (SWP). In addition, these entrepreneurs were able to "influence privatization decisions in their favor," reported the SWP. Result: "Entrepreneurial families like the Sawiris [...] succeeded in building up an almost dominant market position in many branches of the economy."

In the mid-1990s, when the international Orascom conglomerate was the largest private company in Egypt, Sawiris withdrew from the operational business and divided the family empire between his three sons:

• Naguib (born 1954); studied mechanical engineering at the ETH in Zurich ; is considered the most ambitious and risk-taker of the three brothers; took over the telecommunications sector with Orascom Telecom
• Samih (* 1957): at the age of 16 sold boat engines during the school holidays, studied at the Technical University in Berlin and in the meantime built a boat factory in Egypt that flourished for 10 years until import restrictions were lifted; took over the tourism sector with Orascom Hotel and Development (OHD) and founded the resort of El Gouna ("lagoon") on the Red Sea , the Andermatt Swiss Alps in Switzerland and others.
• Nassef (* 1961); studied at Chicago University , took over the now highly expansive area of ​​cement production and construction with Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) with currently 40,000 employees.

The Sawiris family's net worth was estimated by Forbes to be at least $ 10 billion in 2019 .

Sawiris was a practicing Coptic Christian . He died at the end of June 2021 at the age of 91.

Web links

• Omar Gisler: The Sawiris saga: the man who brought the desert to life. In: Urner Wochenblatt . December 17, 2005, archived from the original on January 16, 2013 . 
• The Rockefellers of Egypt. In: NZZ Online . February 26, 2006, archived from the original on September 29, 2007 . 
• About Us. Sawiris Foundation for Social Development. 
• Onsi Sawiris. Orascom Construction Industries, archived from the original on August 25, 2013 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Onsi Sawiri's Success Story. In: SuccessStory.com. May 28, 2021, accessed June 29, 2021 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Benjamin Stupples: Onsi Sawiris, patriarch of Egypt Billionaire Dynasty, this at 90. In: bloomberg.com . June 29, 2021, accessed June 29, 2021 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Thomas Demmelhuber , Stephan Roll: Growing Influence of Large Enterprises on the Political Agenda. (pdf; 323 kB) In: Securing rule in Egypt: On the role of reforms and economic oligarchs. SWP study , July 23, 2007, p. 20 , accessed on July 20, 2019 . 
4. ↑ Billionaires List - # 297 Nassef Sawiris. In: Forbes . April 6, 2021, accessed June 29, 2021 .