Al Amoudi controls a collection of industrial assets primarily in Sweden and Saudi Arabia. He owns Preem, Sweden's biggest oil refinery, and holds a minority stake a holding company called Granitor that operates various infrastructure and property business in Sweden. He also owns an oil company and coffee and rice farms in Ethiopia.
Al Amoudi's fortune is derived mainly from closely held companies in Sweden, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia.
In Sweden he owns Preem, the country's largest oil refiner according to the company's website. It's valued based on the average enterprise value-to-sales multiple of three publicly traded peers. He also owns a minority stake in Granitor, a Sweden-based group that owns various real estate and infrastructure businesses operating in the Nordic region. Its property and industrial businesses are valued separately in this analysis, which is based on its most recent financials and the and construction and property group Midroc Europe. Midroc is valued in three parts: its services units, property unit and its consulting firm, Midroc Invest. These companies are valued based on their most recent disclosed financials and the average enterprise value-to-sales or price-to-book multiples of publicly traded peers.
His net worth was updated in April 2025 to reflect sale of Svenska and changes with his Ethiopian gold assets, resulting in a $4 billion drop in his net worth.
His Saudi Arabia-based gas-station operator Naft Services is valued using revenue figures calculated based on revenue-per-station of its closest publicly traded peer.
In November 2017, Al Amoudi was detained by Saudi authorities in an anti-corruption crackdown. He was released in January 2019 without any information from the Saudi authorities about the reasons for his arrest or the conditions of his release. His European assets continued to operate on a normal basis and were unaffected by his absence, according to company statements published during his absence.
Born in 1946, Al Amoudi grew up in Ethiopia. At the age of 19, he moved to Saudi Arabia, taking Saudi citizenship. There, he built a fortune in the construction and real estate industries, benefiting from government contracts. He created conglomerate Midroc in the early 1980s. In 1988, Midroc's construction arm won a contract to build Saudi Arabia's underground oil storage complex, a multi-billion dollar project.
In the mid-1990s, Al Amoudi also began investing in Ethiopia, forming a close relationship with the ruling party, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. He is now the country's single biggest foreign investor, holding a 98 percent stake in Ethiopia's only large-scale gold mine, as well as businesses operating in agriculture, manufacturing, real estate, steel and construction.
Al Amoudi expanded into oil in the 1990s via his energy-focused holding group, Corral Petroleum. He acquired Swedish energy companies OKP (now Preem Petroleum) and Svenska Petroleum in 1994. Five years later, he assumed control of Morocco's two largest oil refineries and merged them to create Samir.
In Ethiopia, he has invested in coffee, rice-growing projects and land, including a 60-year concession on 10,000 hectares in the province of Gambella. The project has attracted criticism from US-based human rights advocacy group, Oakland Institute, which has characterized it as a "land grab" that has forced the relocation of local residents. The government says resettlement has been voluntary and is unrelated to Al Amoudi's development.
In 2005, Al Amoudi was involved in a defamation case in the UK after a self-proclaimed terrorist expert, Jean Charles Brisard, published articles accusing him of funding terrorism. The parties settled out of court, and Brisard later apologized, saying his information had been false. In July 2011, a UK court awarded Al Amoudi $282,000 in damages in a defamation case against Elias Kifle, publisher of the website Ethiopian Review. In an article, Kifle had also accused Al Amoudi of sponsoring a terrorist organization.
On Nov. 4, 2017, Al Amoudi was one of dozens of high-profile Saudis detained in a sweeping anti-corruption crackdown spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Ethopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appealed to the crown prince for his release. He was finally set free in January 2019. At the time, Saudi authorities offered no explanations for the reasons behind his detention or release.