Naguib Sawires

Naguib Onsi Sawiris (born 15 June 1954) is an Egyptian-American billionaire businessman. He is the chairman of Orascom Investment Holding and the former chairman and CEO of Orascom Telecom Holding. Naguib Onsi Sawiris was born in Cairo, Republic of Egypt to a Coptic family, members of the Coptic Orthodox Church. His mother is Yousriya Loza Sawiris and his father is businessman Onsi Sawiris. He has two younger brothers, Nassef and Samih, both of whom are also billionaires. He received a diploma from the German Evangelical School in Giza, as well as a diploma of mechanical engineering with a master's degree in technical administration from ETH Zurich. Sawiris founded the Free Egyptians Party in 2011. The party decided in late December 2016 at its annual party assembly, without Sawiris to eliminate its board of trustees, which Sawiris was a member of. The board of trustees called for a postponement of the planned vote and called the vote a "coup"; the party was split between backers of Sawiris and party president Essam Khalil. Sawiris was dismissed from the party in February 2017, as he refused to appear before the party on charges that he insulted the board of trustees. However, according to Ragy Soliman, Sawiris remained a member of the party and the board of trustees. Since joining Orascom, the family business, in 1979, Sawiris worked in the development of the railway, information technology, and telecommunications sectors of Orascom. Management decided to split Orascom into separate operating companies in the late 90s: Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH), Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), Orascom Hotels & Development and Orascom Technology Systems (OTS). Orascom Telecom Holding was established in 1997, and then Orascom Telecom Media and Technologies, in 2011, until the recent rebranding as Orascom Investment Holding (OIH), of which he is the Managing Director and CEO. In August 2012, Sawiris was appointed chairman of La Mancha Holding. In 2014, Sawiris raised more than US$4 billion when he sold his stake in his telecommunications companies to Russian company Vimplecom. In early 2015, Sawiris bought a majority stake in the pan-European television channel Euronews. He remained as the main shareholder until beginning the process of selling his stake to Alpac Capital in December 2021. In September 2015, he offered to buy an island off Greece or Italy to help hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict.