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Nassef Sawiris is stepping down as executive chair of OCI Global, the Amsterdam-listed nitrogen and chemicals group he built into one of the world's largest fertilizer producers over more than two decades.
OCI announced on March 3, 2026 that Sawiris had informed the company of his intention to leave the role at its next annual general meeting, citing other professional commitments. No date for the AGM was given. The company said it would announce a replacement executive director in due course.
The departure comes as Sawiris, 65, is in the midst of restructuring his business holdings around a new infrastructure platform. In December 2025, OCI and Orascom Construction, the Sawiris family's Abu Dhabi-listed engineering group, announced a proposed merger that would see OCI liquidated and delisted from Euronext Amsterdam, with its assets folded into a combined entity to be renamed Orascom and anchored in Abu Dhabi. Under that structure, Sawiris would serve as non-executive chairman of the combined group, a less operational role than the one he is now vacating at OCI.
The merger has been complicated by a January 2026 ruling from the Amsterdam Enterprise Chamber, which blocked OCI from proceeding with its shareholder vote over concerns about minority shareholder rights, given Sawiris's controlling position across both companies. Orascom Construction shareholders approved the deal at their own meeting shortly after, but OCI remains unable to formally sign until the Dutch court issue is resolved.
Sawiris spent more than 40 years building the businesses that OCI grew out of. He joined the family's Orascom group in 1982 after graduating from the University of Chicago with a degree in economics, and became CEO of Orascom Construction Industries in 1998. He led OCI's formation as a standalone entity and guided its expansion across the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Over the course of OCI's life as a listed company, it distributed approximately $22 billion in dividends to shareholders.
Over the past two years, OCI sold more than $11.6 billion in assets, including its global methanol business, its Iowa fertilizer plant and its European operations, clearing the way for what Sawiris has described as a focus on U.S. infrastructure through the merged Orascom platform.
Egypt's richest man, with an estimated net worth of $8.5 billion, also owns Premier League club Aston Villa alongside American co-investor Wes Edens.
