The Egyptian billionaire unveiled his plans in an interview with the Financial Times, where he noted that he is consolidating his publicly traded holding companies in Abu Dhabi to make an aggressive push into the U.S market.
Nassef Sawiris is closing in on the completion of the dissolution of his Dutch-listed fertilizer and chemicals company, OCI Global, which has sold off assets valued at over $11.6 billion over the last couple of years.
Subsequent to the completion of the asset sales, Sawiris has set his sights on integrating OCI into Orascom Construction, his family’s company, in a deal that will be revealed on Monday.
The newly merged entity which is scheduled to go public in Abu Dhabi, would be primarily focused on infrastructure investment in the United States.
It aims to leverage Orascom’s building expertise and the more than $1 billion in cash and other proceeds on OCI’s balance sheet to capitalize on a boom in expenditure in sectors like data centers.
The company plans to invest its own capital and partners’ funds in US infrastructure via equity and credit investments in the coming decade.
“We want to focus the next stage of our business on the area we see the biggest opportunity, which is infrastructure,” Sawiris told the Financial Times.
“Any day, these companies will be more successful than a bunch of bankers who do desktop analysis of an asset and then struggle to create the most value,” Sawiris added.
BlackRock’s GIP and Brookfield Asset Management are among some of the major firms that have, in recent years, taken advantage of the infrastructure sector in the U.S market.
OCI and Orascom
As per the KPMG audit, OCI and Orascom returned more than $22 billion in dividends to investors while achieving an overall internal rate of return of more than 39% from Orascom’s 1999 listing to the end of 2024.
OCI, where Nassef Sawiris owns a 40% stake, listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, sold its international methanol business to US specialist Methanex last year for approximately $2 billion.
This was the group’s fourth deal since conducting a strategic review in 2023.
In May 2023, OCI’s board approved a strategic review of all business lines as well as its listing venue in the Netherlands after Ubben bought a 5 per cent stake and pressed the group to explore options, including asset sales to improve shareholder returns.
By the end of the year, OCI had agreed to sell two fertilizer holdings for $3.6 billion each, to Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and US-based Koch Industries.
The Egyptian business mogul, now worth $9.66 billion according to Bloomberg, second only to his brother, Naguib Sawiris, with a net worth of $9.71 billion, recently relocated to the emirate and Italy after departing from the UK, a country from which several businesses have left due to tax policy changes.
As reported in 2023, Nassef Sawiris disclosed his intent to re-domicile NNS Group in the Abu Dhabi Global Market, the city-state’s international financial center, subject to regulatory approval.
According to the firm’s statement, NNS Group was looking to acquire substantial holdings in a select number of companies, with a primary focus on Europe, the Middle East, and North America
