Samih Sawiris

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Samih Sawiris in May 2010

Samih Onsi Sawiris (also Sawires , Arabic سميح أنسي ساويرس, DMG Samīḥ Unsī Sāwīris ; * January 28, 1957 in Cairo ) is an Egyptian - Montenegrin entrepreneur.

Life

Sawiris comes from a wealthy Coptic family. His father Onsi Sawiris founded the Orascom company in 1972 . Samih Sawiri's older brother is Naguib Sawiris and his younger brother is Nassef Sawiris . As entrepreneurs close to the regime, the Sawiris profited in the 1990s from the economic policy of the Egyptian President Husni Mubarak , for example from the privatizations that had been initiated, and became very wealthy. The US magazine Forbes estimated in 2019 that the family owns at least ten billion US dollars.

Samih Sawiris attended the German Evangelical High School in Cairo , he speaks fluent German. After graduating from the Technical University of Berlin with a degree in engineering in 1980 , he founded his first company, National Marine Boat Factory . In 1996 he founded Orascom Hotel Holding (OHH) and in 1997 Orascom Projects for Touristic Development (OPTD) to form Orascom Hotels & Development (ODH), which was taken over by Orascom Development Holding AG in spring 2008 . He has served as president of the group since it was founded in 1989. In the same year, construction of the Egyptian lagoon city of El-Guna began . But he also built Haram City in Cairo , a housing estate with 50,000 apartments for lower-income residents of the city.

Orascom Development Holding AG (ODH) operates nine holiday destinations, primarily in Egypt , but also in Morocco , Oman , United Arab Emirates , Montenegro , Great Britain and Switzerland . The holding company owns 33 hotels, six golf courses and seven marinas . It employs 8,740 people, 6,638 of them in Egypt.

In 2008, Sawiris brought ODH to the Swiss stock exchange . After the IPO, the share price was over 140 francs. When the Arab Spring broke out in December 2010, political unrest and terrorist attacks led to a significant drop in tourist numbers in Egypt. The Orascom share fell to CHF 4.40. In 2014, Sawiris took a 33.7 percent stake, and since April 2020 75.1 percent, in the German tour operator FTI , “in order not to let the influx of tourists to Egypt completely stop,” as the Handelsblatt reported. In 2016, Sawiris also acquired the TV channel Sonnenklar.TV , which advertises holiday trips , from FTI co-owner Dietmar Gunz . The Egyptian entrepreneur also holds - through his Luxembourg- based company SOSTNT Luxembourg S.à.rl - 74.9 percent of the shares in Raiffeisen Touristik GmbH in Altötting, Bavaria . Through Raiffeisen Touristik, Sawiris took over the German franchise system of the insolvent British travel group Thomas Cook in 2019 . According to Handelsblatt, Samih Sawiris rose to become the "most powerful travel company in German tourism". “Orascom has been making losses since 2011,” reported the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger in January 2019. “New projects”, according to the Tages-Anzeiger, “need high initial investments before they start to generate money.” The share price on January 27, 2020 was at 14.6 francs, but lost half of its value in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

He is married to an Ecuadorian for the second time and has five children. He lives in Cairo . In 2011 he acquired the Montenegrin nationality.

Tourism project in Andermatt

View of Andermatt (2005)

On September 26, 2009 the groundbreaking ceremony for the Andermatt Swiss Alps tourism project took place in Andermatt , for which he founded the Andermatt Alpine Destination Company (AADC) based in Altdorf in the canton of Uri . In Andermatt he works closely with Bernhard Russi , a former Swiss ski racer. On the former military site of the Swiss Army with an area of ​​1.46 square kilometers, Sawiris built a holiday center with several hotels, holiday homes and holiday apartments, an 18-hole golf course, shops and a sports and leisure center with an ice rink and indoor swimming pool. The area in Andermatt was part of the Swiss defense strategy in World War II , called Schweizer Réduit . The project has been criticized by environmentalists since the beginning.

With the founding of Orascom Development Holding , Sawiris also relocated the headquarters of its previous group of companies to Switzerland.

Tourism projects in Montenegro

In 2013 Sawiris began to realize the “Lustica Bay” tourism project in Montenegro . On the Luštica peninsula in the Traste Bay, Orascom Development Holding built a "large number of residential units, hotels and lifestyle facilities". The first properties were completed in 2015.

At the end of 2015 it was announced that Sawiris had been awarded the contract by the Montenegrin government to convert the former Austro-Hungarian fort into a hotel on the island of Mamula in the Bay of Kotor . During the Second World War the fort served as a concentration camp for the fascist regime of Italy. The plans have sparked international criticism.

Soccer

In July 2003, Sawiris founded the football club El Gouna FC , which currently plays in the Egyptian Premier League . He also bought 12.5% ​​of the shares in FC Luzern in 2011 and joined its board of directors , from which he resigned in 2019 after disputes with the investor Bernhard Alpstaeg.

Honors

  • Entrepreneur of the Year (Switzerland) 2009. Awarded by the Handelszeitung .
  • On December 7, 2013 Samih Sawiris was a jury prize for the winners of the Arosa Humor shovel 2013 Arosa Humor Festival chosen.

Technical University of Berlin El-Guna campus

Campus of the TU Berlin in El-Guna

In 2012, the Technical University of Berlin opened its first foreign campus in El-Guna, Egypt. Five master’s courses are offered in El-Guna. The TU alumnus Samih Sawiris not only bore the costs for the construction (around 45 million euros), but also pays for ongoing academic operations.

literature

Documentation

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The UAE's shadowy dealings in Serbia. In: middleeasteye.net. Middle East Eye, February 12, 2015, accessed January 27, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Thomas Demmelhuber, Stephan Roll: Security of rule in Egypt. On the role of reforms and economic oligarchs. Science and Politics Foundation, July 2007, p. 20 , accessed on July 20, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Luisa Kroll, Kerry A. Dolan: Billionaires list - The richest people in the world. In: Forbes . March 5, 2019, accessed July 20, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Jürgen Dunsch: Palms for the mountain village. In: FAZ.net . June 11, 2007. Retrieved July 20, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Susanna Petrin, el Gouna: Interview with Sawiris: Egypt is difficult for business people . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . ( nzz.ch [accessed December 18, 2019]).
  6. ↑ Orascom Development Holding AG: Annual Report 2018 . S. 7 .
  7. ↑ Orascom Development Holding AG: Annual Report 2018 . S. 72 .
  8. ↑ a b c Ernst Meier: Sawiris waives millions in Andermatt. In: Tages-Anzeiger online edition. January 10, 2019, accessed July 29, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Handelsblatt of April 16, 2020
  10. ↑ Christoph Schlautmann: How an Egyptian billionaire wants to lure tourists into the country again. In: Handelsblatt online edition. November 5, 2018. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  11. ↑ a b Christoph Schlautmann: Egyptians reach for German travel sales. In: Handelsblatt online edition. December 2, 2019, accessed January 27, 2020 .
  12. ^ Orascom Development Holding. January 27, 2020, accessed January 27, 2020 .
  13. ↑ ODH share onvista.de , March 23, 2020, accessed on March 23, 2020.
  14. ↑ Montenegro Citizenship by Investment offshoreshield.globaltradersacademy.org , accessed on March 19, 2020.
  15. ↑ The recipe for success of Samih Sawiris. In: nzz.ch . May 22, 2009. Retrieved July 20, 2019 .
  16. ^ Gigantism in Andermatt. In: gigantismus-Andermatt.ch. Retrieved July 20, 2019 .
  17. ^ Orascom Development Holding: Lustica Bay. Retrieved July 20, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Former concentration camp on Adriatic island is to become a luxury hotel. In: sueddeutsche.de . January 17, 2016, accessed July 20, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Montenegro defends decision to turn ex-concentration camp into resort. In: theguardian.com. January 17, 2016, accessed July 20, 2019 .
  20. ↑ El Gouna FC. Retrieved November 17, 2019 .
  21. ↑ Investor Sawiris joins FC Luzern . July 7, 2011 ( nzz.ch [accessed November 17, 2019]).
  22. ↑ Marco Mäder: FCL-Knall: Alpstaeg also no longer on the board of directors. October 24, 2019, accessed November 17, 2019 .
  23. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger : Sawiris voted Entrepreneur of the Year. 23 December 2009
  24. ↑ Switzerland on Sunday 8 December 2013, p. 43.
  25. ↑ Humor shovel for a tourist expert with perseverance. In: bernerzeitung.ch. December 7, 2013, accessed December 28, 2013 .
  26. ^ TU Berlin: TUB Campus El Gouna. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  27. ↑ Tagesspiegel: TU Berlin opens campus in El Gouna. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Sawiris, Samih
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sawiris, Samih Onsi; Sawires, Samih
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Egyptian entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Cairo , Egypt