Nassef Sawiris
Executive chairman, OCI/co-owner, Aston Villa FC
Last year, ADNOC and the Euronextlisted OCI took their jointly-owned fertiliser venture Fertiglobe onto the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX). With a $795m IPO, it was the third-largest ever listing on ADX at the time. That Fertiglobe’s shares jumped 20 per cent on its trading debut was only a testament to the future prospects of the firm which sold the UAE’s first cargo of blue ammonia to Japan a few weeks ahead of the listing. Apart from being the coowner of Aston Villa FC, some of his strategic investments include a 6 per cent stake in Adidas and another stake in LafargeHolcim, which is among the world’s largest cement manufacturers.