Moroccan billionaire Moulay Elalamy now owns 12.5% of TP

Moulay Hafid Elalamy has closed the derivative contract he used to build his position in Teleperformance and holds about 12.5% of the French outsourcing group, according to Médias24, which reported he could go further.

The contract was due to expire on Sept. 2.

Elalamy launched the operation in March through a total return swap arranged by Morgan Stanley, worth up to €355 million, about 3.8 billion dirhams. A total return swap gives an investor the economic exposure to a share without owning it outright, and it allowed his Saham Group to accumulate gradually rather than buying openly in the market.

The stated target was 15%, which would have made him the largest shareholder in Teleperformance ahead of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. Saham said at the time it did not intend to take control.

He reached 14.87% of the capital and 14.52% of voting rights on May 12, crossing the 5% and 10% disclosure thresholds with France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers. That total combined 12.1% held directly after physical delivery of shares with 2.77% still sitting inside the swap. He reduced the swap two days later as the share price moved in his favour.

Settling the remainder leaves him with the direct holding.

The position came from selling a business to the company he now partly owns. Saham held Majorel, an outsourcing operation run as a joint venture with Germany’s Bertelsmann, and Teleperformance bought it in 2023 for about €3 billion. Saham took part of the payment in Teleperformance shares, which left it and Bertelsmann each holding roughly 4%.

Elalamy became chairman of Teleperformance’s board in August 2024, the first Moroccan to lead the board of a company on France’s CAC 40 index.

He was born in Marrakesh in January 1960, took his degree at the Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec, and founded Saham Group, whose insurance subsidiary became the largest in Morocco. He served as Morocco’s minister of industry, trade and new technologies from October 2013 to October 2021, and chaired the country’s failed bid to host the 2026 World Cup.

Saham bought Société Générale’s 57.7% stake in its Moroccan bank in April 2024 for €745 million, along with the insurer La Marocaine Vie, and rebranded it Saham Bank in June 2025. The bank held about $12 billion in assets in 2024.

Teleperformance, which now trades as TP, appointed Jorge Amar as chief executive, a former McKinsey senior partner who led the firm’s global digital customer services work.