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Moroccan billionaire Othman Benjelloun stood at the center of a royal ceremony Monday as Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan inaugurated the Mohammed VI Tower in Sale, completing a mixed-use skyscraper that is now the tallest building in Morocco and one of the tallest structures on the African continent.
The inauguration was carried out by order of King Mohammed VI. On arrival, Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan was greeted by Benjelloun, chairman and CEO of O Capital Group, and Dounia Benjelloun, the group's administrator. The 93-year-old billionaire commissioned the project in 2018 through O Tower, a subsidiary of O Capital Group.
The Mohammed VI Tower rises 250 meters across 55 floors on the right bank of the Bouregreg River in Sale, and is visible from up to 50 kilometers away. Belgian construction firm BESIX built it in a joint venture with Moroccan contractor TGCC under a Design and Build contract covering engineering, procurement, construction, facades, electromechanical systems, finishes and furniture. BESIX confirmed the official delivery on March 30. Architects Rafael de la Hoz and Hakim Benjelloun designed the structure, which spans 102,800 square meters and rises from a four-level podium.
The tower houses a Waldorf Astoria luxury hotel, office spaces, high-end residential apartments, a conference hall, retail shops, restaurants and a panoramic heritage observatory at the summit. The observatory offers sweeping views of Rabat and Sale's ancient walls, kasbahs and historic gates. The building is served by 36 elevators and rests on 60-meter-deep foundations engineered to withstand seismic activity and flooding from the Bouregreg River. An innovative harmonic damping system reduces movement on upper floors caused by wind and seismic vibrations.
Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan toured several sections of the tower during Monday's ceremony, visiting the main lobby, a model apartment, the Waldorf Astoria hotel and the heritage observatory at the summit. The project forms a key component of the broader Bouregreg Valley development program, itself part of the "Rabat City of Lights, Moroccan Capital of Culture" initiative launched in 2014 under King Mohammed VI.
The inauguration caps one of Benjelloun's most ambitious ventures outside banking. His fortune, estimated by Forbes at $1.7 billion, rests primarily on his 27.41 percent stake in Bank of Africa, the Casablanca-based lender that manages roughly $46 billion in assets and operates across 32 countries. Benjelloun chairs the bank and has expanded its network to more than 2,000 branches, cementing his position as Morocco's richest individual and one of Africa's most enduring business figures.
The Mohammed VI Tower Rabat now stands as one of the most prominent real estate milestones in recent North African history, placing the capital alongside Casablanca and Cairo as cities reshaping their skylines with private-sector ambition.
