Safwan Thabet has long enjoyed a reputation as one of Egypt’s most successful businessmen, nurturing his small family company into the country’s pre-eminent dairy producer despite the Arab state being rocked by social and political unrest over the past decade.
But now a huge cloud of uncertainty hangs over Juhayna Food Industries as the 75-year-old who founded and chaired the group languishes in Cairo’s notorious Tora prison after being arrested in December over accusations of financing and being a member of a terrorist organisation.
The Cairo-listed company, which counts global fund managers among its investors, hoped Seif el-Din Thabet, Safwan’s son and the chief executive, would steady the ship. But in February, the acting chair was detained and charged with the same offences, leaving the group’s leadership in limbo.
The company’s directors have since had to explain to banks, investors and clients what is going on in the business, which is 51 per cent owned by the Thabet family, while Juhayna’s 4,000 employees fret about the future.
For analysts, the saga epitomises the unpredictability that the private sector faces in Egypt, where President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s regime has used the accusation of terrorism to target activists, academics, journalists and business people since ousting the Muslim Brotherhood in a 2013 coup.
At the same time, Sisi, a former army chief, has expanded the military’s footprint across the economy, cowing the private sector as companies find themselves having to contend with the state’s most powerful institution.
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