Sometimes we don’t choose how we want to make it in life. Sometimes we don’t choose how we want the world to remember us.
Sometimes we just wake up and grind hard and before we know it, we have made something remarkable out of sheer grit.
“Thinking big, starting small, and moving fast” has been his guiding mantra to getting to the top. The outcome is a business empire that has made him a household name in Algeria as its’ population takes his sugar and cooks with his oil.
The outcome is Algeria’s first billionaire and the country’s richest family with a net worth of US$ 2.5 billion, as of February 2024 according to Forbes’ estimates.
Even after a tragic setback in 1995, he rose and showed the world that it was still possible.
Early life
Issad Rebrab was born in 1944 in the village of Taguemount-Azouz in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria to parents who were active in the fight for independence from French colonization. He lived an ordinary life throughout his childhood.
For his post-secondary education, he moved to France on a scholarship to study accounting at Cours Pigiers in the city of Thionville.
He would later take up a teaching job and teach accounting and commercial law back in Algeria.
In 1968, he quit teaching and established an accounting firm. To Issad, taking this step was a risk he knew he had to take. After all, he believed that if he failed, he could always go back to teaching.
Business
The accounting firm turned out to be his gateway to the world of business and entrepreneurship. In 1971, one of his clients urged him to take up shares in a newly formed metal construction company, Socomeg.
Getting in at 20% Socomeg shareholding, Issad immersed himself in the dynamic world of the metallurgical construction and processing industry and soon co-founded another company, Profilor in 1975.
The 70s and 80s saw Issad Rebrab aggressively stamping his dominance in Algeria’s metal construction industry by acquiring his competitors; Sotecom in 1979 and SACM in 1984 and forming new outfits; Enalux (1985), Nord Metal (1986) and Metallor (1986).
Building on this success, Issad establishment Metal Sider, a steel manufacturing company in 1988. Metal Sider was a big milestone in his entrepreneurial journey as it eclipsed all the other plants that he had built up until that time.
In 1991, in a bid to diversify beyond the metal and steel industries, Issad Rebrab acquired IBM activities in Algeria. In the same year, he ventured into media by establishing Liberte, a French-Algerian daily newspaper.
However, in 1995 at the height of Algeria’s civil war, three of Issad Rebrab’s factories fell victim to terrorist attacks costing him over one billion Algerian dinars.
Following the attacks, Issad temporarily moved to France but in a classic example of resilience, he would soon be back in Algeria in 1997 to start Hyundai Motors, Algeria.
1998 saw the formation of Cevital. With an initial focus on the food manufacturing industry, Cevital has grown to be Algeria’s biggest family-owned business empire.
In Bejaia, a Mediterranean port city of Algeria, Cevital runs one of the largest sugar refineries in the world with the capacity to produce 2.7 million tons of refined sugar annually.
It imports raw sugar from Brazil and produces white sugar for the Algerian market and for export to Libya, Tunisia, and other destinations in the Middle East.
In 2006, Issad Rebrab ventured into the distribution industry by establishing Numidis. Known by the brand name UNO, Numidis is a chain of stores of different sizes – supermarkets, hypermarkets, and convenience stores across Algerian towns and cities. His real estate company Immobis was also launched in the same year.
Other milestones included the establishment of SAMHA (Samsung Home Appliances) which manufactures and distributes Samsung Electronics products in Algeria and Numilog, a marine transport and logistics company.
2016 saw Issad buy the El Khabar media group for $45 million to add to his media portfolio having been already involved with Liberte. El Khabar is one of Algeria’s largest daily newspapers that publishes in Arabic. Liberte, his initial venture was however closed in 2022.
In his 50-year reign at the top of Cevital, as Chairman and CEO, Issad oversaw the company’s expansion beyond Algeria through acquisitions of French home appliances maker Groupe Brandt , French carpentry and thermic isolation company, Oxxo, Spanish aluminum firm, Alas Iberia, Italian steel mill, Lucchini, and a German water purification company.
The family business empire has over 30 subsidiaries, employs over 18,000 people, operates in four continents, and has footprints in agro-processing, iron and steel, automotive, retail and distribution, real estate, flat glass manufacturing, media, electronics and domestic appliances, construction material, and water treatment.
Legal and political issues
In 2014, after publicly accusing the Algerian state of deliberately frustrating his business projects, Issad started restructuring Cevital into multiple semi-independent units in different sectors in Algeria coupled with the acquisition or establishment of autonomous companies in Europe, Brazil, Asia, and the Middle East in a complex plan to mitigate against potential attack on the business empire by the Algerian government.
In 2015, while speaking in Brazil, he told the press that he had received some information from reliable sources that they would arrest him as soon as he returned to Algeria in order to silence him.
The then Algerian Minister of Industry Abdessalem Bouchouareb fired back calling Issad a “dealer” who brought into the country used industrial equipment at inflated prices and filed them at customs as new to benefit from tax exemptions reserved only for the importation of new industrial equipment.
While Rebrab’s business empire grew in leaps and bounds during President Bouteflika’s 20-year rule, he had become a critic of the government and openly backed the protests that ultimately forced the president to resign in April 2019.
In a twist of fate, following President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s resignation, Issad Rebrab was among the several Algerian billionaires who were arrested in an anti-corruption crackdown.
According to Algerian state TV, Issad Rebrab charge sheet read;
“(Providing) false statements regarding the movement of capital from and to abroad, inflating equipment import bills and importing used equipment (while claiming tax and customs exemptions only meant for new equipment imports)”.
Issad Rebrab ended up spending 8 months at El Harrach prison and was released on 1st January 2020 due to time already served after an Algerian court sentenced him to 6 months of jail time and a fine of US$ 11.6 million. His company, Evcon, a subsidiary of Cevital was also fined US$ 21 million.
While the courts found him guilty of breaking laws on foreign exchange and fund transfers as well as forgery and false custom declarations, Issad Medrab has always maintained that he is innocent.
A May 2023 court verdict would later ban Mr. Issad from participating in any commercial or management activities at Cevital but by then he had already relinquished the company’s leadership to his son, Malik Rebrab.
Family
Issad Rebrab is married to Djedjiga Rebrab and the couple have five children, all of whom are executives in the family business empire in one form or another.
First born son, Omar is the head of the Automotive, Real Estate and Services division, second born, daughter Lynda is the director of Research, third born son Malik is the overall CEO of the conglomerate, fourth born son Yassine is a managing shareholder while the youngest son, Salim is the managing director of the Food Processing and Distribution sector.
In a succession plan that had taken decades to craft, Malik Rebrab took over the operational leadership of Cevital in 2008 before replacing his father as the CEO in July 2022. Several third-generation family members and in-laws also hold different key positions in the business empire.
While announcing his retirement from Cevital, Issad Mebrab had this to say;
“After more than 50 years at the heart of our country’s economic life and noticing what Cevital Group has become, I can say that I have lived this period with great pleasure and pride.
On June 30, 2022, I will retire and pass the torch on to Malik Rebrab, who will become the new CEO of the Group. A graduate in Management and Finance, he has already held high positions at Cevital, which he knows perfectly well”
For Issad Rebrab, you can always attain all that you wish for. All you have to do is Think big, start small, and move fast.
