Financial Times: Egypt’s richest man plans to invest $50 bln in US

Egypt’s richest man, Nassef Sawiris, is seeking to invest up to $50 billion in US infrastructure projects, reports the Financial Times.

The merger between Sawiris’ chemical and fertilizer company OCI Global and his family’s construction holding company Orascom Construction is expected be announced soon. The new entity will be registered in Abu Dhabi. The main focus of this business will be investments in US infrastructure projects, in particular in data centers

Over the next decade, this corporation is expected to invest both its own capital and partner funds in US infrastructure.

Orascom already operates in the US through its subsidiary Weitz, which the corporation had acquired in 2012. Weitz has built several data centers, airport terminals, and university dormitories in the US.

Nassef Sawiris, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes at almost $9 billion, is the younger son of Onsi Sawiris, who had founded a construction company in the 1950s that grew into the large international conglomerate, Orascom.