Mohammed VI’s sisters expand their property empire

Princess Lalla Asmaa, sister of King Mohammed VI, is the owner behind the first Delano-branded hotel and residences in Africa, a Marrakech resort development signed in April with Ennismore, the lifestyle division of French hospitality group Accor.

Ennismore and YAMED, the property development platform of Casablanca-based Ynexis Group, announced the signing of Delano Marrakech Hotel & Residences on April 22. The announcement named Ennismore group chief executive Gaurav Bhushan and Ynexis founder and chief executive Karim Beqqali. It did not identify the project’s owner.

The development will comprise 130 guestrooms, including suites and private villas, alongside about 80 villa-style branded residences of four to six bedrooms with private pools. Sales of the residences are scheduled to launch in late 2026. The hotel is due to open in 2030. It marks Delano’s debut on the continent and the brand’s first residences outside the United States.

The project is carried through Yameno III, a company incorporated in 2023 whose chief executive is Aziz Benzzoubeir, the princess’s chief of staff and the long-standing manager of her business affairs. The site sits close to a second property project the princess owns. Benzzoubeir previously worked at Morocco’s land registry directorate and served as chief of staff to former interior minister delegate Saad Hassar.

A partnership dating to 2018

The princess’s relationship with Beqqali’s group is not new. In November 2018, her holding company Yano Participation, acting through a subsidiary called Noya Real Estate, formed a joint vehicle with Yamed Capital under the name Yamed Investors 03. The company was registered at Anfa Place in Casablanca with a mandate covering the acquisition and holding of movable and immovable assets. Beqqali confirmed the structure at the time but declined to describe its purpose beyond saying it was examining one or two projects.

Lalla Asmaa, 60, is the second daughter of the late King Hassan II and Princess Lalla Latifa. She married Khalid Bouchentouf in 1987. Her property interests extend to Dakhla in the Western Sahara, where she has moved to develop land holdings.

French supermarket land held through Dutch companies

The princesses have also built a position in French commercial real estate. Lalla Asmaa and her younger sister Lalla Hasna acquired roughly ten plots of land totalling 38,455 square metres, occupied by Leader Price discount supermarkets across France, in a transaction worth about $24 million (21 million euros).

A French property company, SCI Soror, was created in November 2019, with the transfer contracts signed on December 18 that year. The holdings sit beneath two Dutch entities, Ousmaila BV for Lalla Hasna and AA Investments BV for Lalla Asmaa. Casino Group sold the Leader Price chain to Aldi months later, in 2020, leaving the sisters as landlords to the German discounter’s expanding French network.

Lalla Hasna’s business affairs are run by Anis El Youssoufi, a former director of international relations at Bank Al-Maghrib, Morocco’s central bank. The two princesses also established a French-law structure, Marceau Group, using Chaabi Bank, the European arm of Banque Centrale Populaire, for the depositary certificate.

Lalla Hasna, 58, chairs the board of the Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection and heads the holding company Star Finances. Documents in the Pandora Papers leak identified her as the owner of Oumaila Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company that bought a five-bedroom house near Kensington Palace in London in 2002 for close to $11 million. The property was sold in late 2020 to a South African businessman for more than 100 million dirhams, about $10.7 million at current rates.

Lalla Meryem broadens into materials and renovation

The eldest sister has been the most acquisitive. Lalla Meryem, 63, appointed Nabil Ahabchane in February 2024 to run her group of companies, which spans agriculture, real estate, construction and hospitality. Ahabchane, a former deputy head of pension fund CIMR and former chief executive of Upline Corporate Finance, replaced Anass Bittaf.

In December 2024 she acquired Forges de Bazas, Morocco’s leading importer of forklift trucks and the local distributor for Toyota Forklift, from Upline. She moved into building materials early this year, taking positions in concrete and quarrying, and in May began setting up a business in France to renovate properties for resale.

Inherited Paris assets go to market

The expansion runs alongside the disposal of inherited property. Lalla Latifa, widow of Hassan II, died on June 29, 2024. Three properties in the Paris region she bought in 2002 through private property companies managed by her Paris-based business manager, Elie Michel Rouimi, were listed late last year at a combined value of about $34 million (30 million euros).

Ownership passed to Prince Moulay Rachid and the three princesses. Mohammed VI waived his share of the French estate. A ten-room house on Rue Windsor in Neuilly-sur-Seine carries an asking price of 7.5 million euros. Representatives of the family are also preparing to sell residences in Rabat and Bouznika.

The king’s personal fortune has been estimated at about $5.7 billion. The family’s broader corporate footprint runs through Al Mada, the investment group formerly known as Société Nationale d’Investissement, and Siger, the king’s personal holding company. The palace does not comment on the private business affairs of its members, and people close to the princesses have cited confidentiality when questioned about their holdings.