Top 10 billionaires in Africa and how they made their money

Naguib Sawiris (Net worth: $2.9 B)
The second Sawiris owns stakes in gold mines through his closely held company, La Mancha Resources. The Luxembourg-based entity’s investments include stakes in Evolution Mining and Endeavor Mining. He’s also invested in Orascom Telecom Media and Technology, which has interests across the Middle East and North Africa.

The majority of Sawiris’ fortune is held in cash and closely held assets, most of which come from the sale of his stake in Russian telecommunications company Vimpelcom for almost $4.1 billion in 2011 and 2012. He acquired 20 percent of Vimpelcom in 2010 as part of a deal to sell most of his telecommunications assets, including Italy’s Wind Telecomunicazioni and 51 percent of Cairo-based Orascom Telecom Holding, for $1.5 billion plus the Vimplecom shares.

Sawiris controls most of his investments through Luxembourg-based holding vehicle, Orascom TMT Investments, formerly called Weather Investments II, which he controls with his father, Onsi. Their stakes aren’t disclosed and his share of the company, known as OTMTI, is calculated at 70 percent, based in part on the ownership structure of another asset owned by the Sawiris family: publicly traded fertilizer company, OCI, which is controlled by Onsi and Naguib’s brother, Nassef.

Through OTMTI, Sawiris indirectly owns 36 percent of publicly traded Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding, a Cairo-based company formed from the merger between Vimpelcom and Orascom’s former parent company, Orascom Telecom Holding. He also owns an estimated 70 percent of La Mancha Resources, which he acquired in 2012 for $492 million to invest in gold assets. Through La Mancha, he owns stakes in publicly traded gold miners, Endeavor Mining and Evolution Mining.