Sinocrot Global Group
Sinocrot Global Group (SGG; Arabic: مجموعة سنقرط العالمية majmū‘at sinuqruṭ al-‘ālamīyah) is a multinational conglomerate with interests in the transport, shipping, manufacturing, broadcasting and multimedia, e-commerce, property development and real estate, financial services, construction and energy development industries, with over 300 subsidiaries active in 85 countries. Its container shipping company alone operates the second-largest container ship fleet in the world. Sinocrot has its international headquarters in Jisr el-Majami, Palestine. It also maintains major international headquarters in London, New York City, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Osaka, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Melbourne and Vancouver.
Established in Mandatory Palestine in 1933 as the Sinocrot Shipping Company by captain and international shipping professional Haitham Sinocrot, the company grew from a small shipping company with a fleet of ten medium-sized merchant ships in the 1930s to the largest container ship fleet in the Middle East by the early 1960s, purchasing its hundredth modern vessel in late 1961. Starting in 1970, the Sinocrot Shipping Company began expanding into other industries under the leadership of Haitham Sinocrot's eldest son Michael, who had taken over as president and CEO following the retirement of his father in 1969; the company first expanded into ground (freight rail and semi-trailer) transport and shipbuilding, gradually expanding further into construction, manufacturing and energy development through the 1970s and early 1980s.
In 1970, the company went public, listing shares on the Cairo Stock Exchange, and in 1977 was restructured into a corporation overseeing multiple subsidiaries and given its modern name. Public listings were moved to the Arab Securities Exchange in Nasser City upon its opening in 1977, and its net worth increased over 300% between 1977 and 1980. In the late 1980s, Sinocrot moved into the financial services, property development and real estate industries, and by 1996 was already acquiring significant sections of the Arab Union's nascent online market, including markez.com, today the Arab Union's largest online retailer and a major global competitor to Amazon and Alibaba Group. Sinocrot experienced yet another boom from 2010 to 2015, nearly doubling its annual profits during this six-year period, and as of 2021, Sinocrot Global Group is ranked the second-largest corporation in the Arab Union by operational size, number of employees and annual profit.