Egyptian billionaire families Sawiris, Mansour top Forbes list of wealthiest in Arab world

The Forbes list of the five richest Arab families for 2022 has been released, and it comes as no surprise that the Egyptian billionaire families Sawiris and Mansour continue to dominate it.

The two Egyptian billionaire families rank first and third, respectively, according to the recently published list. It’s worth noting that Forbes has not been tracking Saudi billionaires since 2018.

The Sawiris family, with a net worth of $11.2 billion, holds the top spot as the wealthiest Arab family. However, their fortune did see a decrease of $800 million from March to December, a trend seen among many of the wealthiest families in the Arab region.

The Lebanese billionaire Mikati family comes in at second place, with a fortune of $5.6 billion, but they too experienced a drop in wealth over the same period as the Sawiris family.

The combined loss for the Sawiris and Mikati families was $1.6 billion, which coincides with the economic struggles faced by Egypt and Lebanon, including shortages of foreign currencies, a decline in the value of their local currencies, and an increase in the inflation rate.

Despite the macroeconomic volatility, the Egyptian billionaire Mansour family, with a net worth of $5.1 billion, managed to maintain their wealth and tied with the Family of Algerian billionaire Issad Rebrab for third place. The Hariri family from Lebanon rounds out the top five with a combined fortune of $4.7 billion.

The past year has been a challenging one for the wealthiest Arab families, with many experiencing significant declines in wealth.

This trend is not exclusive to the Arab region, as billionaires across the world saw their wealth significantly decline in 2022 due to a variety of factors, including the rise in global interest rates, geopolitical tensions, and global supply chain difficulties.

Bloomberg reported that the world’s 500 richest individuals lost a total of $1.4 trillion in 2022. African billionaires were also impacted by these challenges, with three managing to increase their wealth and eleven others experiencing a loss.