Late Moroccan billionaire Miloud Chaabi's heirs remain divided 10 years on

The heirs of Miloud Chaabi, the Moroccan billionaire who built one of the country's largest private conglomerates, are still divided a decade after his death, with leadership of the family's Ynna Holding having changed hands several times since 2016.

Tensions among Chaabi's heirs have made regular headlines in Morocco over the past 10 years, the magazine Telquel reported in a special report on succession in the country's family businesses. It described the Chaabi family's experience as the most telling example of what can go wrong when a founder's succession is not fully settled.

Control has moved back and forth

Chaabi died on April 16, 2016, at 86. His widow, Mama Tajmouati, became chair after his death. In January 2019, his son Fayçal was elected chairman and chief executive officer. The group now again lists Tajmouati as its chair and CEO.

Chaabi had started dividing responsibilities among his children while he was still alive, including his daughter Asma, according to Telquel. That early planning did not prevent the disputes that followed.

From goat herder to industrialist

Chaabi's own story is one of Morocco's best-known business origin stories. He was born in 1930 in a village near Essaouira, herded goats as a boy and learned to read at a mosque. At 18, in 1948, he started his company with two employees. He named it Ynna, the Berber word for "mother," in honor of his own mother.

By the time he died, Ynna Holding had grown into a conglomerate with about 20,000 employees. Its businesses ranged from public housing to the Aswak Assalam supermarket chain, the Ryad Mogador hotels and SNEP, a petrochemical company.

A firewall around the business

Despite the family dispute, the group has kept operating. Its website highlights the executives who run its subsidiaries, including professionals recruited from outside Morocco, and notes that women lead several of its main businesses.

Zakaria Fahim, a consultant who advises African family businesses on succession, told Telquel that the family had recognized early, as grandchildren arrived, that it needed independent managers with real autonomy. "It was essential that the family not disrupt the company's operations, even if there were disputes over certain specific issues," he said.

Telquel described the arrangement as a firewall rather than the kind of orderly handover that experts recommend. It said the approach had held so far, although the family has still not resolved its differences.

A wider problem for Morocco

The Chaabi case highlights a risk that runs through the Moroccan economy. Family businesses account for 92.9% of the business sector, about 6.3 million jobs and more than 60% of national value added, according to the first national study on the subject, presented in June by the Moroccan Family Business Institute with support from the International Finance Corporation.

The same study found that only 15% of Moroccan family businesses survive to the third generation, and only 5% have reached 50 years. Kacem Bennani-Smires, president of the institute, has warned that failed successions destroy jobs and skills, which makes them a risk to the wider economy as well as to the families involved.

Other large Moroccan family groups have taken different routes. Othman Benjelloun, 93, still runs Bank of Africa, and neither of his two children has followed him into banking. At construction group SGTM, the founders' families sold 20% of the company in a stock market listing in December 2025, keeping control while bringing in outside investors.

At Ynna Holding, the business that Miloud Chaabi started with two employees has outlived him by a decade, and the family he left in charge of it has yet to settle its differences.