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Naguib Sawiris has taken over as chairman of Orascom Investment Holding, the Cairo-listed company he founded as Orascom Telecom, and its shareholders have approved a loan of up to $10 million from its principal owner.
The board named Sawiris chairman in a filing lodged with the Egyptian Exchange on Wednesday. It appointed Marwan Mohamed Hussein Mohamed, representing OTMT Acquisition S.à r.l., as managing director.
The appointments follow a general assembly held by video conference on Aug. 17, at which shareholders elected a new board for a three-year term and authorised the borrowing. Holders of 3.16 billion shares attended, about 60.23 percent of the company's 5.25 billion shares in issue, meeting the legal quorum.
The loan carries an unusual voting record. Shareholders holding 416,036,175 shares approved it, which the company recorded as 100 percent of the votes cast after excluding 2.74 billion shares held by the related party providing the money. That leaves the facility approved by holders of roughly 8 percent of the company's total capital, with the largest owner barred from voting on a transaction with itself.
The managing director was authorised to sign the loan agreement and to request drawdown.
Shareholders went further on financing. They authorised the board to enter loan and mortgage agreements, issue guarantees to lenders and other counterparties, and conclude related-party agreements with subsidiaries the company majority owns. Those powers cover both Orascom Investment and the companies beneath it.
The money arrives against widening losses. Orascom Investment reported consolidated net losses attributable to the parent of EGP 533.775 million for 2025, deepening 18.6 percent from EGP 449.999 million the previous year.
The new board comprises Sawiris, Mohamed and Hassan Moustafa Abdou, the last two representing OTMT Acquisition, alongside Akil Hamed Beshir, Iskandar Shalaby Naguib Rizk Shalaby, Wafaa Shoukry Zaklama, Manal Talaat Abdel Hamid, Tarek Ahmed Abdelkader Elmollah and Ahmed Mahmoud Othman Darwish. Elmollah and Darwish sit as independent directors.
Shareholders also ratified the 2025 accounts, the auditor's report and the corporate governance report, and endorsed board resolutions covering 2024 and 2025 through the date of the meeting. They appointed Mohamed Hassan Youssef of Hazem Hassan and Partners as auditor for 2026 on fees of EGP 2.1 million, and authorised donations of up to EGP 3 million during the year.
The company has changed shape repeatedly. Sawiris established it as Orascom Telecom Holding in 1997 and built it into a mobile operator spanning North Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh and North Korea, before selling the bulk of it to Russia's VimpelCom. What remained became Orascom Telecom Media and Technologies in 2011 and was renamed Orascom Investment Holding as it moved into other sectors. The shares have traded on the Egyptian Exchange since January 2012 and closed at EGP 1.87 on Wednesday, up 3.31 percent.
Sawiris, 71, is the eldest of the three brothers who built the Orascom group. Forbes estimates his fortune at about $5.6 billion. His brother Nassef, Egypt's wealthiest person, is separately pursuing a takeover of the Amsterdam-listed OCI, and lifted his combined holding there to 57.5 percent on Wednesday. Their brother Samih founded Orascom Development, which built El Gouna on the Red Sea and the Swiss resort of Andermatt.
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