Biography

Study & Activism

Nadhmi AuchiNadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs, was born in 1937 to a professional family in Baghdad.

As a student at the University of Mustansiriyah where he studied economics and politics from 1955, Nadhmi joined the newly formed Baathist Party, attracted by its goals of pan-Arab unity, an end to the final vestiges of colonialism in the Middle East and economic equality. His activism led to his arrest in 1959 along with 76 other party members following a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qassim. Despite having only a minor and peripheral role, he was sentenced to three years “rigorous imprisonment.”

Following his release after two years during which time he was beaten and tortured, Nadhmi Auchi left the Baathist Party to help form a new political grouping, the United Socialist Moment. Marrying in 1963, he graduated from university in 1967 and landed his first job, as a junior civil servant at Iraq’s oil refineries administration.

A year after the successful 1968 Baathist coup, Mr Auchi was arrested and imprisoned without trial by the new regime. He resumed his career in 1969 and rose to become the Director of Planning and Development at the Oil Ministry.

Entrepreneurship & Britain

Nadhmi Auchi in ParisMr Auchi left the civil service in 1972 to fulfill business ambitions. Early ventures include a contracting business and electrical manufacturing.

The rapid growth of Mr Auchi’s businesses led to the incorporation of General Mediterranean Holding SA (GMH) in Luxembourg in 1979, the year in which Saddam Hussein became President of Iraq. The new company allowed him to extend his commercial activities in an increasingly globalised marketplace.

Within a year Mr Auchi had left Iraq for London with his wife and four children. He did not return to Iraq until 2007, the year after Saddam’s execution. His decision to leave the country of his birth had followed a bruising encounter with an enforcer for the corrupt head of Iraq’s intelligence service, Saddam’s half brother Barzan Al-Tikriti. The episode convinced Mr Auchi that he could not pursue his business career in Iraq without endangering his own life and that of his family.

In 1981 Mr Auchi established the Compagnie Internationale de Participations Bancaires et Financieres (CIPAF) as the banking and investment arm of GMH. During this period, GMH continued to build its property interests with the 1984 opening of Le Royale Luxembourg, part of an expanding luxury hotel chain, and the creation of a UK real estate subsidiary, Tucan Investments, with more than €50 million in assets.

In 1986 Mr Auchi learned that his brother Naseer had been killed by Saddam’s regime. Naseer had no record of political engagement, but had become aware of the extent to which Barzan Al-Tikriti was involved in creating a personal fortune based on corruption and extortion. When a power struggle between Barzan and Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid, was brutally suppressed by the dictator, Naseer was caught in the cross-fire; his knowledge of Barzan’s corrupt business dealings led to his being rounded up with dozens of others and executed.

Business & Philanthropy

In 1986, reflecting his continuing interest in politics and international affairs, Mr Auchi became a vice chairman on an advisory committee to the Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a position he held for four years.

Celebrating in 1999 the twenty years since founding GMH, he received a framed print of Westminster signed by more than one hundred and thirty politicians including Tony Blair, William Hague and Charles Kennedy, then the leaders of their respective British political parties. The gift, which has pride of place in his Hammersmith office, was presented to him in recognition of his importance in British business life and acknowledgement of his contribution to humanitarian and charitable causes.

In 2002 Mr Auchi became President of the Anglo Arab Organisation which exists both to promote the greater integration of British Arabs into mainstream society and to foster better understanding through dialogue between the UK and the Arab world.

In that same year, Mr Auchi received the Key to the City of Uslan, South Korea, in recognition of his investment projects and his company’s major contribution to the country’s economy. GMH was involved in a project to build 10,000 housing units and was until recently a major shareholder in Korad, one of the premier advertising and PR agencies in South Korea. In a similar vein, Mr Auchi also launched his media venture, Middle East Online, an internet based service that provides coverage of news and current events in Arabic and English.

In line with his leisure sector interests, Mr Auchi’s GMH officially opened WaterGate Park, the 14,000 square metre water theme park in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2002. Among its many attractions, WaterGate boasts the 4.10 metre-wide and 150 metre long Mega Slide, the first of its kind to be built outside the USA.

Crescent Pharma, a pharmaceutical manufacturer with over 200 generic product licenses, was acquired by GMH in 2003 as the company continued to build its pharmaceutical portfolio and sold in 2009.

Mr Auchi’s long-standing work on behalf of inter-church and inter-faith dialogue was honoured in 2003 by the Roman Catholic Sacred Military Constantian Order through the award of the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Francis I. A year later this received further recognition when he was knighted by Pope John Paul II. In 2007 he was awarded the Holy Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Medal from Pope Benedict XVI in recognition of his support for humanitarian and inter-faith understanding in former Yugoslavia.

Auchi and LahayeThe 2007 Presidential Award of the American University of Cairo was presented to Mr Auchi in recognition of his support for graduate education programmes and commitment to developing future leaders to serve the Arab World.

Back in Britain, in 2010 alone a minimum of 200 diabetes patients a week benefited from the services provided by the dialysis centre at Hammersmith hospital which is funded by Mr Auchi.

Today GMH, the company Mr Auchi founded in 1979, has assets valued more than $3 billion and has a presence in over 30 countries with more than 11,000 employees worldwide.