Moroccan businessmen continue to acquire French companies and a power plant is the next target

A new trend is emerging among Moroccan businessmen who, in recent times, are acquiring companies of French origin or stakes in certain banking and insurance institutions that were previously French and whose capital was bought by Moroccan investors .

This move aims to end the domination of the French in certain sectors such as energy, where it was decided to acquire shares of a French company in the energy group which manages a vital power plant in the region of Essaouira.

According to private information, the French company Engie has decided to sell its share in the Essaouira Energy company, owner of the coal-fired Essaouira power station.

Louis Yager-Hobson, Engie’s regional director in North Africa, said in interviews that his company was committed to completely divesting its stake in Essaouira Energy.

Yager-Hobson stressed that potential buyers of Moroccan origin wish to acquire Engie’s shares in the company which manages the coal-fired power plant project in Essaouira, without revealing the identity of these buyers.

It should be noted that the French company Engie has other projects in Morocco, where it operates a wind power plant with a capacity of 300 megawatts in the city of Tarfaya, as well as a project to build a desalination station of water, in addition to a wind farm in the city of Dakhla, in partnership with the Moroccan private energy company Nareva.

It should be noted that the company Essaouira Energy is 33% owned by Engie, 35% by Nareva Holding and 30% by Mitsui & Co Ltd of Japan, while other shareholders hold the rest, knowing that the project of the Essaouira thermal power plant covers around a quarter of the kingdom’s electricity needs and exports part of its production abroad.