Altrad is the founder and president of Altrad Group, the biggest scaffolding provider in France. The Montpellier-based company is closely held and provides a range of services to the construction, oil and gas, and power generation industries. It had revenue of €5.9 billion ($6.5 billion) in the year to Aug. 31, 2025.
The majority of Altrad's fortune is derived from his majority ownership of Altrad Group, the biggest scaffolding provider in France.
Altrad owns about 97% of his namesake company through two holdings companies, Altrad Participations and Altrad Capacio, according to the 2025 annual report.
The company had revenue of €5.9 billion ($6.5 billion) in the year to Aug. 31, 2025, according to its annual report. It's valued using reported financial results and the average enterprise value-to-Ebit, enterprise value-to-Ebitda and enterprise value-to-sales multiples of five publicly traded peers: Fluor Corp, Bilfinger SE, EMCOR Group Inc, HAKI Safety AB and United Rentals Inc.
Cash holdings are based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes and market performance.
The company didn't respond to a request for comment on the net worth calculation.
Altrad was born in Syria around 1948.
He was raised by his grandmother and taught himself to read. He arrived in Montpellier in 1969 with little money and no knowledge of French.
After graduating, he worked as an engineer and co-founded a personal computing company, which he later sold. With the profits from the sale he acquired Mefran, a bankrupt scaffolding firm, in 1985.
He quickly turned around the company and began diversifying its services by offering cement mixers and related products. International expansion began in the late 1980s and major acquisitions followed including the 2003 purchase of German competitor Plettac.
Continued growth led to Altrad being the first French person to win the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2015.
By 2025, the group employed about 65,000 people and had revenue of €5.9 billion ($6.5 billion).