Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris reorganises his Orascom Construction holding as he builds a $50 billion Abu Dhabi infrastructure platform

Nassef Sawiris has quietly reshuffled the internal structure of his Orascom Construction holding, transferring 33.8 million shares representing 30.66% of the company's issued share capital from one Cyprus vehicle to another as part of what the NNS Group described as an internal reorganisation.

NNS City (Cyprus) Ltd acquired the shares from NNS Holding (Cyprus) Limited. The transaction, disclosed to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and the Egyptian Exchange on May 11, does not change who ultimately owns the stake. Sawiris and entities held for his benefit collectively control 48.46 million shares in Orascom Construction, or 43.95% of the company. His direct personal holding stands at 29,442 shares, a nominal position beside the corporate vehicles that carry the bulk of his interest.

On paper, this is paperwork. One Cyprus entity transferred a block to another Cyprus entity and the beneficial owner did not change. But the timing and the direction of the restructuring sit inside a much larger story about how Sawiris is rebuilding his empire after systematically selling two of them.

He sold Orascom's cement business to CRH for $6.5 billion in 2015. He then spent the better part of a decade dismantling OCI Global, the fertiliser and methanol group he built into a major international business, disposing of more than $11.6 billion in assets including its Iowa fertiliser plant, its global methanol operations and its European businesses. He stepped down as executive chair of OCI Global in March 2026. What remains is Orascom Construction and the infrastructure platform he is now assembling around it.

The plan is big. Sawiris intends to direct up to $50 billion of capital over the next decade into US infrastructure through a merged entity combining OCI Global and Orascom Construction, creating an Abu Dhabi-anchored platform with a $14 billion backlog and US reach through Weitz, an Orascom subsidiary that has been delivering airport terminals, data centers and university facilities since 2012. The merger between the two companies received shareholder approval at an extraordinary general meeting in January 2026 and is working through the remaining regulatory steps. Sawiris will serve as non-executive chairman of the combined entity.

Against that backdrop, the shift of 33.8 million shares from NNS Holding (Cyprus) to NNS City (Cyprus) is a consolidation step, putting the dominant block of his Orascom stake into a single vehicle that sits more cleanly within his reorganised family office structure. NNS Group, which had operated out of London for nearly a decade through NNS Advisers in Mayfair, formally closed its UK presence in April 2026 after Sawiris redomiciled to Italy in early 2025 and registered NNS Group in the Abu Dhabi Global Market in late 2023. The closure of the London office was the last institutional step in an exit from the UK non-dom regime.

NNS City has been the family office's primary vehicle for open market purchases in Orascom Construction. In April, it acquired approximately 1.13 million additional shares, lifting Sawiris' aggregate position from 42.36% to 43.39%. That position has since been nudged higher with additional purchases, reaching the current 43.95%. Each incremental buy has been framed as a long-term conviction trade in the construction platform he is building, rather than a financial position to be traded.

Orascom Construction itself is performing. Its project backlog stood above $14 billion entering 2026, weighted toward infrastructure, industrial and power projects across the Middle East, Africa and the US. Among its marquee completed projects is the Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza pyramids, one of the largest cultural infrastructure projects in the world. Earlier this year it signed a memorandum of understanding with Uganda to study the feasibility of a light rail system for the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area.

The ADX and EGX dual listing gives the stock exposure to both Gulf institutional investors and Egyptian retail and institutional markets, and Sawiris' continued buying across both exchanges has been one of the more consistent signals in either market that he regards the current valuation as below what the combined platform will be worth once the OCI merger completes and the US infrastructure thesis has time to play out.

Sawiris, 64, is Egypt's richest person with a net worth estimated at $9.6 billion by Forbes in its 2026 Africa rankings. Beyond Orascom, his investment footprint includes close to 6% of Adidas, where he was nominated in March 2026 to replace outgoing chairman Thomas Rabe, a role that would make him among the most prominent non-European figures at the top of a major global consumer brand. He also co-owns Aston Villa through V-Sports alongside American billionaire Wes Edens, a partnership now pushing into France through a potential acquisition of French Ligue 2 club FC Annecy.