Billionaire Guts Media Firm Weeks After Glitzy Dubai Launch
Naguib Sawiris set up Moniify for the TikTok generation. But shortly after it went live, the firm abruptly changed course, leaving new staff with nowhere to go.
Naguib Sawiris
Photographer: Asad Zaidi/BloombergIt was meant to be the last hurrah of a billionaire’s near five decades of deal-making — and a second shot at success in the media business.
Naguib Sawiris, who’d built a $8.4 billion fortune in some of the world’s toughest markets, set up Moniify last year as a kind of CNBC for the TikTok generation. Based out of booming Dubai, it was envisaged as a new media platform to dispense the secrets of wealth-building to an ambitious young audience across key emerging markets. And all backed by someone who’d done it himself.