A new ranking by leading business magazine Forbes Middle East has ranked four Moroccan businesses among the 100 biggest Arab family businesses: O Capital, Safari, Holmarcom and Diana Holding.
The ranking was based on a set of criteria related to commitment to innovation, sustainable development, competitiveness and the value of contribution to local economies.
The O Capital Group, owned by the Benjelloun family, ranked 21st in the new ranking of Arab family businesses, as it was established in 2021, through a merger between the Benjelloun-Meziane Holding and Finance.com under the leadership of Othman Benjelloun.
This group owns 73% of the capital of Bank Africa, and cooperates with major partners in the business world, such as Accor Group and Air Arabia Maroc, while by employing 20,000 employees, it plays a pivotal role in the activity of the Moroccan economy.
Lower on the list of Arab family businesses, the Safari Group, owned by the El Omrani family, ranked 69th.
Saida El Omrani chairs the board of directors of the group, which was founded in 1944 and is active in services and agricultural production.
The group has engaged in investment agreements to adopt environmentally friendly equipment, and its subsidiaries, such as Samia, are achieving significant sales growth and reflecting its commitment to innovation and sustainable development.
The Holmarcom Group, owned by the Bensalah family, ranked 91st.
Under the leadership of Mohamed Hassan Bensalah, the group was able to diversify its economic activities between logistics, real estate, finance and food industries, in addition to its contribution to the capital of listed companies, such as mineral water “Ouelmes” and “Bank of Morocco.”
The family enterprise broke into new investment areas through a subsidiary company called “Biscoland” to manufacture biscuits and chocolates.
The Diana Holding Group ranked 94th in the ranking of Arab family businesses, under the leadership of Maria Zniber, specializing in food industries and exploiting a huge area of agricultural land.
The holding formed strategic partnerships with important market players, such as the plastic packaging company ALPLA, reflecting its commitment to innovation and sustainable growth in the agricultural and industrial sectors in Morocco.
Omar Zouidin, an expert in financial engineering and business management, considered the results of the new Forbes ranking as an indicator of a long-standing management pattern in Morocco, related to the family business, which is run by members of the same family and inherits its assets from one generation to the next, explaining that regions such as Souss were the cradle of this phenomenon, noting that this type of business in Morocco suffers greatly from the development of the separation of management from capital,.
In a statement to Hespress, Zouidin added that family businesses in Morocco face other issues related to how the management is transferred from one generation to another, explaining that most of the current businesses are led by elderly people or former practitioners of management during the era of the heirs, which poses an issue when handing over the leadership to new managers, pointing out that the spread of this type of business in the Kingdom has become limited due to the modernization of the business field and the diversity of legal forms of companies and multiple financing and investment tools.
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