Egyptian billionaire Sawiris dies at 90
The patriarch of a family of billionaire businessmen who launched a group of multinational companies under the Orascom umbrella, Onsi Sawiris, died on Tuesday at the age of 90.
Chairman of the Coptic Christian General Authority, Sherif Doss, announced on Facebook.
Mr Sawiris received an engineering degree from Cairo University and started his construction firm in 1950.
In 1976, he established the Orascom General Contracting and Trade Company, which later became Orascom Construction Industries.
His conglomerate is one of the country’s largest contractors for building roads and waterways.
It was expanded in the 1980s and 1990s by working in tourism, hotels, computer and mobile phone services.
In 2003, the Sawiris family held the three largest stocks by market capitalisation on the Cairo exchange – Orascom Telecom, Orascom Construction Industries and MobiNil.
Onsi Sawiris is the father of famous Egyptian businessmen Naguib, Nassef, and Samih.
According to Forbes, Mr Sawiris’s net wealth is estimated at $993.8 million while his son Nassef is Egypt’s richest person with a $7.1 billion fortune.
(Xinhua/NAN)
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