Algerian billionaire Abderrahmane Benhamadi's Condor signs German pipe manufacturing deal in Berlin

Condor, the industrial group controlled by Algerian billionaire Abderrahmane Benhamadi, signed an industrial partnership with German manufacturer Maincor on Friday to produce pipes in Algeria for central heating systems, home appliances and the automotive industry.

The agreement covers industrial investment and a transfer of technology, according to a statement from the group. Output will be sold on the Algerian market and exported under the German brand.

Maincor Rohrsysteme, based in Schweinfurt in Bavaria, makes plastic pipes through two divisions, one serving heating and plumbing systems in buildings and the other supplying industrial customers. Its industrial arm produces pipes for the automotive sector, home appliances, electrical installation and cable protection, which places it close to the product lines Condor already assembles at Bordj Bou Arreridj. The company employs about 400 people and said it produced more than 100 million metres of pipe in 2020 under its own label and on an original equipment basis.

Neither company disclosed the value of the investment or a timeline for production.

One of more than 30 deals signed in Berlin

The agreement was one of a wave concluded at the Algerian-German Economic Forum, held in Berlin on July 17 on the sidelines of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's state visit. Tebboune arrived on Wednesday at the invitation of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and held talks with Chancellor Friedrich Merz the following day, when the two governments adopted a joint declaration on a strategic agenda for bilateral partnership.

More than 30 agreements and memoranda were signed at the forum, spanning hydrocarbons, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, transport and manufacturing. State energy company Sonatrach and Germany's VNG agreed to open negotiations on renewing their gas export contract and raising volumes. Pharmaceutical group Saidal signed a deal to produce medicines for diabetes, heart failure and kidney disease locally. Siemens Mobility signed five agreements with Algeria's national rail operator and the Algiers metro covering urban transport, rail modernisation and technology transfer.

Other industrial deals included a wire harness production project between GEKO Industrie and Schunk, an elevator manufacturing venture between ASOR and Volkslift, and exploratory talks between Opel and Algeria's Hlal Group. The two governments also agreed to reactivate their joint economic committee and establish a bilateral business council.

Germany's interest is not difficult to trace. Berlin lost Russian pipeline gas after 2022 and has been courting alternative suppliers since. A tanker carrying Algerian gas from the liquefaction complex near Oran docked at a floating terminal off Wilhelmshaven two weeks before the visit. Tebboune told members of the Algerian community in Berlin that the two countries had agreed to cooperate on green hydrogen, gas, helium and car manufacturing.

Condor's run of foreign partnerships

The Maincor agreement extends a pattern. In June, Condor Electronics signed export agreements with distribution partners in Rwanda and Tanzania at the Algiers International Fair, its most concrete move yet into sub-Saharan Africa, structured under the African Continental Free Trade Area.

In January the group launched its brand in Egypt as part of a $1 billion investment plan, with local production of televisions, refrigerators and air conditioners scheduled to begin by 2027. That followed an agreement with China's Hisense to build an air conditioning plant at Bordj Bou Arreridj requiring $200 million and designed to produce two million units a year, with four fifths earmarked for export.

The group has also trimmed where it saw no strategic fit. It sold its entire stake in glass packaging producer Alver Spa to French beverage group Castel in January 2023, describing the disposal as a refocusing on its core electronics and appliances business.

A family group built on import substitution

The Benhamadi Group traces its origins to 1954, when Mohamed Tahar Benhamadi started a small trading operation in Bordj Bou Arreridj on Algeria's High Plateaus and expanded it into transport, hauling construction materials across the northeast. His son Abderrahmane founded Condor Electronics in 2002, assembling televisions from imported components before moving into computers, smartphones, solar panels and household appliances.

The group now spans 32 companies across 12 industrial sectors, employs more than 17,000 people and generates annual revenues above $1.5 billion. Its deputy chief executive, Mohamed Salah Daas, has said Condor alone accounts for half of Algeria's home appliance exports and about 90 percent of those from its home region. Benhamadi's personal net worth has never been publicly disclosed, though the scale of the group places him among the wealthiest industrialists in Algeria and the wider Maghreb.

Tebboune's government has spent years pressing Algerian companies to substitute for imports and to build export earnings outside oil and gas, which still account for the overwhelming share of the country's foreign receipts. Condor has become the most visible test of whether that policy can produce a manufacturer capable of competing abroad. The Maincor agreement moves the group further up the supply chain, into components it has until now bought in.