Moroccan billionaire businessman Aziz Akhannouch’s net worth has dropped by $200 million since the start of the year, as a decline in the valuation of his industrial assets has offset previous gains.
Akhannouch was appointed prime minister of Morocco in September 2021. With a fortune of $2 billion, he is also one of Morocco’s wealthiest men, thanks to his stake in the Akwa Group, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate founded in 1932 by his father and a partner, Ahmed Wakrim.
The recent drop in his net worth can be attributed to a decline in the collection of his industrial assets, specifically his stake in Maghreb Oxygene, a Moroccan chemical industry player, and Afriquia Gaz SA, a Morocco-based group engaged in refining and marketing liquefied petroleum gas.
Since the start of business and trading this year, the Moroccan billionaire’s net worth has dropped from $2.2 billion on Jan. 1 to $2 billion at the time of writing. This represents a 9.1-percent, or $200 million, decrease in his net worth since the year began.
Despite the impact of the multimillion-dollar loss on the value of his stake and net worth, Akhannouch remains one of the Casablanca Bourse’s wealthiest investors and one of Morocco’s richest businessmen.
Maghreb Oxygene, a Casablanca-based company led by Akhannouch, recently reported an increase in profit of 9.8 percent in the first three months of 2022, from MAD67.9 million ($6.9 million) to MAD74.5 million ($7.6 million).
Its strong first-quarter financial performance in 2022 follows a double-digit increase in revenue from MAD251 million ($25.5 million) in 2020 to MAD277.3 million ($28.1 million) in 2021.
Afriquia Gaz, another company controlled by the billionaire through his multibillion-dollar conglomerate Akwa Group, reported revenue of MAD7.15 billion ($720.2 million) at the end of 2021, up from MAD5.52 billion ($556.2 million) at the end of December 2020, a 29.6-percent increase explained primarily by an increase in energy product prices.