How did the Mubarak Family Get Its Billions?

Although none of the Mubaraks are on the Forbes list of the richest people, they probably should be. The British Guardian newspaper estimated that the family is worth approximately $40-70 billion, but the Huffington Post believes the correct number is closer to $5 billion. Either way, that’s a pretty nice pension for government work.

Running a country with a suspended constitution for 30 years enabled Mubarak to take a slice of essentially every significant business deal in Egypt. Without any accountability, Mubarak has been able to benefit from bribery fees, monopolies, red-tape fees, and nepotism. Had he shared even a morsel of that with the Egyptians, maybe he would still be in power. But Egypt’s GDP per capita is $6,200, one-seventh of that in the U.S., and half of all Egyptian men are unemployed.

We will probably never know exactly how much wealth the Mubarak family has amassed. Mubarak was driven from office after 18 days of historic protests, which was probably just enough time to hide significant parts of his fortune. Further, an eventual exile deal may enable Mubarak to retain his wealth, no questions asked, if he and his family leave Egypt. For now, the Swiss government has temporarily frozen assets that could be linked to Mubarak.

See Marcus Baram, How the Mubarak Family Made its Billions, Huffington Post, Feb. 11, 2011; Rick Newman, How Hosni Mubarak Got So Rich, Yahoo! Finance, Feb. 11, 2011.

Special thanks to David S. Luber (Attorney at law, Florida Probate Attorney Wills and Estates Law Firm) for bringing this to my attention.