Algeria’s richest man Issad Rebrab has now lost $500 million so far in 2023

Algerian billionaire Issad Rebrab’s net worth has dropped by half a billion dollars since the beginning of the year, owing to a revaluation of his private holdings in Cevital Group, Africa’s largest private conglomerate.

According to Forbes, the billionaire businessman who is the richest man in Algeria and the seventh-richest man in Africa has seen his net worth fall by $500 million since the start of the year, from $5.1 billion on Jan. 1 to $4.6 billion at the time of writing.

The recent drop in his net worth offset some of the gains he made between 2020 and 2022, when his net worth increased by nearly $1 billion, from $4.2 billion to $5.1 billion, as Cevital profited from Europe’s sudden shortage of sunflower oil due to regional tensions.

Rebrab established Cevital, the country’s largest private conglomerate, in 1998, and the company has since grown to become one of Africa’s largest private groups. The majority of Issad Rebrab’s fortune of $4.6 billion stems from his ownership of Cevital.

As a well-diversified manufacturing conglomerate, the group has pursued an ambitious foreign acquisition strategy and has reached the critical mass required to compete with the world’s largest corporations.

As part of its expansion plans under the Algerian billionaire and his sons, the group launched a factory in Setif, one of the most important cities in eastern Algeria, to produce electric motors for washing machines. It has also announced plans to establish a subsidiary in Mauritania to develop an industrial complex in the country’s free trade zone of Nouadhibou.

Earlier this year, the well-diversified manufacturing conglomerate received approval from an Algerian court to build a tourist mega-complex in the seaside resort of Tichy in Bejaa, Algeria.

The project, which was halted due to a land dispute in 2015, is located on the east coast of Bejaa, a Mediterranean port city, and commune on the Gulf of Bejaia. It is expected to benefit the region’s economy and contribute to the promotion of Algeria as a tourist destination.