Moroccan billionaire heir Moulay Mhamed Elalamy takes his family's Saham Group into Spain

Moulay Mhamed Elalamy, the 36-year-old heir who runs Morocco's Saham Group, has set up an investment holding company in Madrid, taking his family's business in Spain beyond the property interests it already holds in Marbella.

Elalamy is a director and authorized representative of SH REI Spain SL, a company incorporated in September with its registered office in Rivas-Vaciamadrid, just outside the Spanish capital, Spanish society and business magazine Vanitatis reported on Oct. 13. Its sole shareholder is Saham Investments Ltd., a Saham company based in Dubai, and the company was set up with advice from accounting firm PwC, according to the magazine.

SH REI Spain was formed with share capital of 10,000 euros, or about $11,200, and will focus on investment, Vanitatis said. It is chaired and run by Rim Bensouda Mourri, Saham's director of asset management, who serves as its president and chief executive. Elalamy's appointment as director was recorded on Sept. 23 in BORME, Spain's official commercial registry gazette.

The new company is open to investing across different sectors. Until now, the family's presence in Spain was limited to real estate in Marbella, on the Costa del Sol, where Elalamy and his father, Moulay Hafid Elalamy, are listed as administrators of several companies. Spanish registry records compiled by corporate data site Empresia show the son has been a joint administrator of Saham Real Estate Spain SL since December 2023, and has held roles at five other Spanish companies, including Rosal Mar-Sol Investment SL since 2020.

The heir who runs Saham

Elalamy is the eldest son of Moulay Hafid Elalamy, who founded Saham in 1995. The group made its name in insurance, which it sold in 2018, and now invests in finance, real estate, education and agriculture from bases in Casablanca and Dubai.

The younger Elalamy attended the American School of Casablanca and finished secondary school at Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland in 2008. The boarding school has educated members of European royal families and business dynasties. He went on to earn a commerce degree at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, with exchange programs at Harvard and Sciences Po in Paris.

He started his career outside the family business, with an internship at Boston Consulting Group in Paris and a job at private equity firm Abraaj Capital in Istanbul. He returned to Morocco in 2013, when his father joined the government, and joined Saham under veteran executive Saâd Bendidi. He went on to run Saham Assistance, served as the group's secretary general and led insurer Saham Assurance before becoming Saham's chief executive in 2018.

He has been involved in the group's largest deals. Saham sold its remaining stake in its insurance business, Saham Finances, to South Africa's Sanlam for $1.05 billion in 2018. In 2023, France's Teleperformance agreed to buy Majorel, the call-center company Saham co-owned, in a deal valued at about €3 billion. Saham also bought Société Générale's Moroccan businesses for €745 million, creating Saham Bank. Elalamy is vice chairman of Saham Bank's supervisory board and chairman of the board of consumer lender Eqdom.

A father close to the palace

Moulay Hafid Elalamy, 66, served as Morocco's minister of industry and trade from 2013 to 2021, and King Mohammed VI chose him to lead the committee behind Morocco's unsuccessful bid to host the 2026 World Cup. The family's fortune is hard to pin down. Forbes estimated his net worth at $620 million in 2014 and has not published an updated figure since, Vanitatis noted.

He has long-standing ties to Spain. As head of Morocco's main business federation, he was received by King Juan Carlos I alongside representatives of the Spanish employers' group CEOE. As minister he met his Spanish counterparts José Manuel Soria and Reyes Maroto, and in June 2019 he appeared with Andalusia's regional president, Juanma Moreno, at a Morocco-Andalusia economic forum in Rabat.

The Spanish move follows other expansion by the family in Europe. In June, Moroccan media reported that Saham held 92.3% of Arktika Capital AB, a licensed Swedish lender that buys bad-loan portfolios from European banks, and that the younger Elalamy had been named its chief executive.