Born in Ethiopia to a Yemeni father, Mohammad Hussein Al Amoudi was raised in Saudi Arabia.
He made his first fortune in construction and real estate before branching out into buying oil refineries in Sweden and Morocco. Today he is one the largest foreign investors in both Sweden, where he was honoured with the Royal Swedish Order of the North Star by King Carl XVI — and his native Ethiopia, where he bankrolls the national soccer team.
This year’s economic crisis is likely to have affected a number of Al Amoudi’s Swedish investments. The Nordic region’s biggest economy went into a recession in the third quarter of this year as the global freeze-up of credit markets undermined consumer spending and sapped demand for Swedish goods. Inflation slowed to 4 percent from 4.4 percent in October, and the stock exchange is down almost 40 percent from year-to-date.
Al Amoudi owns a broad portfolio of businesses not only in oil but also in mining, agriculture, hotels, hospitals, finance, operations and maintenance. His holding and operating companies, Corral Group and the Midroc Group, employs more than 40,000 people.
Corral Group has an investment portfolio in Europe and the Middle East that includes Preem Petroleum, the largest integrated petroleum company in Sweden, Svenska Petroleum & Exploration [SPE], SAMIR (a petrochemical and refinery company in Morocco), Naft Services Co (Saudi Arabia) and Fortuna Holdings Co (Lebanon).
In November Preem Petroleum delayed making a decision on new projects citing weak demand.
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