Rabat- Driss Bencheikh, the director of Attijariwafa Bank’s insurance subsidiary, Wafa Assurance, has stepped down on Thursday in what appears to be a new reshuffle inside the Société Nationale d’Investissement, the Royal holding company known as SNI.
According to media reports, Bencheikh, who was appointed head of Wafa Assurance in June, 2014, will be replaced by Ali Harraj, who was previously CEO of Tenor Group, owned by the businessman and founding president of the Moroccan philharmonic Orchestra, Farid Bensaid.
Reshuffles have apparently become a custom within the SNI. In September 2014, the president of the holding company, Hassan Bouhemou, was replaced by Hassan Ourigali.
In December 2014, SNI made some big changes in the senior management of a number of affiliated companies. Inside the Marjane Group, Mohamed El Amrani was replaced by Abdellah Tabat, while at the same time, the then director of Sotherma Company, Driss Bencheikh, was replaced by former director of Marjane Group Tajeddine Guennouni.
Ramses Arroub was appointed head of Sonasid and Optorg, the SNI’s international subsidiary specializing in industrial equipment and automobile industry.
Earlier this week, SNI has reportedly hired American and British investment Banks Goldman Sachs and Rothschild to advise it on the sale of a minority stake in Attijariwafa Bank.
SNI could sell at least 19 percent of Attijariwafa Bank, one of Morocco and Africa’s biggest banks, for an estimated 900 million Euros ($ 1 billion), French-speaking magazine Jeune Afrique reported.
In a bid to shift focus towards more promising sectors such as tourism, telecoms and renewable energies, SNI sold an additional 21, 75% of dairy firm Centrale Laitiere to the world’s largest yoghurt maker, Danone, for an estimated €278 million.
SNI also completed the sale of the remaining 50 percent in Morocco’s top biscuit maker, Bimo, to Kraft Foods, for 1.31 Billion Dirhams.
In addition, SNI has announced plans to sell the remaining 9, 1 % it holds in the capital of Cosumar, a group specialized in the extraction, refining and the conditioning of sugar.
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