Some groups are born of an opportunity and others of a necessity. Madar Holding belongs to the second category. Born from the restructuring of the Société Nationale des Tabacs et Allumettes (SNTA), the group was able to transform an industrial legacy into something greater: a multisectoral ambition, a cross-sector vision, and a presence in the daily life of Algerians that few holdings can claim.

Today, Madar is no longer a mere industrial group. It has become an economic player in its own right, with a clear investment logic, a portfolio of integrated subsidiaries and a philosophy that distinguishes two levels of intervention: direct strategic investment in sectors where national sovereignty is at stake, and the financing of the productive economy through ICOSIA, its venture-capital company dedicated to SMEs.

When strategic investment in Algeria is mentioned, one often thinks of hydrocarbons. But Madar has chosen another terrain: food, health, and the processing industry. Three fields whose cost is not only economic, but also political and social.

Kotama Agrifood is the country's first unit dedicated to processing soybeans, with a production capacity of 4,000 tons per day. The meal produced by this unit feeds the national livestock sector. It is not merely an attractive consumer product, but an essential one at the heart of this chain.

When Kotama runs, an entire sector breathes.

In the same logic, TAFADIS — the group's food refining and distribution subsidiary — produces refined sugar, an essential consumer product used every day by every Algerian household. Once again, the group chose to control locally what could be imported. An industrial choice, but also a political one in the noble sense of the word.

27,000 hectares. This is the area held by the group through its subsidiary Global Agrifood in the wilaya of Ouargla. Land that, only a few years ago, was unexploited, out of sight and classified among dormant assets. Today, this land is irrigated by pivot, connected to the national power grid and destined to become one of the country's Saharan breadbaskets.

The project is simple in concept, complex in execution: growing corn and fodder in the desert to supply the Kotama plants, producing complete animal feed and locally raising sheep and goats to fill a national deficit estimated at several million heads per year. The loop is short, value is retained locally and dependence on imports recedes.

In this context, the group is currently finalizing the Sahara 3.0 project, a program of integrated Saharan farms of 500 hectares per unit, combining livestock, date palms and solar energy in a circular approach. A Saharan farm that produces its own energy, fertilizes its soil and makes use of all its by-products. It is not a chimerical idea, but a modern application of 21st-century agronomy.

There are dependencies as invisible as oil or wheat, yet just as important. Among them, dependence on plants and seeds. Every banana tree planted in Algeria, every olive plant derived from vegetative propagation was long imported. This means an outflow of foreign currency and a loss of sovereignty with every season.

Madar has decided to tackle this challenge at the root. The group is developing a tissue-culture center, a laboratory technique that makes it possible to multiply healthy, pathogen-free plants from a single plant cell. Priority will go to the banana tree, whose fruit Algeria imports for nearly 300 million dollars a year, then to the olive tree, the argan tree and the date palm.

The group is in dialogue with the Biotechnology Research Center of Constantine, while remaining open to international partnerships. For plant biotechnology is not a secondary sector, but a guarantee of the continuity of national agriculture in the decades to come.

When the pandemic struck in 2020, the world discovered a truth known to specialists: countries that do not manufacture their own masks, protective clothing and medical consumables become hostages of those who produce them. Algeria experienced this reality.

Madar, through its subsidiary SINAATEC, had invested early in the production of non-wovens, materials used in the manufacture of medical masks, high-protection masks and other medical consumables. When global supply chains collapsed, local production became a necessity rather than a choice.

This presence reflects the group's philosophy: investing in the essential before it becomes urgent. A preventive logic confirmed by successive crises. For a State that does not produce its essential health inputs is not a fully sovereign State.

Algeria has a fabric of SMEs endowed with great dynamism, but which often lacks the financing needed to grow. This financial obstacle is one of the main brakes on economic development.

Madar has responded through ICOSIA, its venture-capital company. The idea is simple: the group invests not only in its own projects, but also in those of others. By taking stakes in promising companies, ICOSIA plays the role of a catalyst that banks or the financial market cannot always provide.

This reflects the group's culture: Madar is not an empire that swallows everything, but a player within a national economic ecosystem, acting on two levels: direct investment in strategic projects and indirect investment in productive ones.

Madar owns the CR Belouizdad club, one of the most decorated and popular clubs in Algeria. This cannot be reduced to an image or marketing investment. Football in Algeria represents a vast social space, where the categories of society meet around the same passion.

The group also supports the MADAR cycling Team, a sport built on patience, discipline and perseverance. A symbolic reflection of the group's values: success is not instantaneous, but lasting.

Madar is defined not only by its sectors, but by its function: a long-term investor that places its capital where the impact is greater than the immediate return. Food, health, biotechnology, SMEs, social and sporting life: so many elements of a single vision.

In a global context where supply chains are being transformed and economic sovereignty is returning to the forefront, Madar does not appear as a merely well-positioned group, but as a pioneering one.

And this is perhaps the true mark of a strategic group: not only the one that was right after the events, but the one that saw before them.