RABAT, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Moroccan conglomerate ONA, controlled by the country's royal family, confirmed Mouatassim Belghazi as chairman when posting a doubling of first-half net income, helped by a disposal, on Monday.
ONA shares closed 1.0 percent higher at 1,363 dirhams.
Analysts had been on alert for clues on Belgahzi's fate since Al Alam daily reported last week he would be fired for his failure to forge "a clear strategic vision to steer the group in the next years". Al Alam is the mouthpiece of Prime Minister Abbas el Fassi's Istiqlal party.
Its frontpage report on ONA had startled analysts because of the newspaper's political links. Last year, ONA sacked Belghazi's predecessor Saad Bendidi for what the group had said then was his lack of "new vision and strategy".
ONA has stakes in many of the north African country's most lucrative businesses including banking, insurance, supermarkets, food, mining and car distribution.
"The board of directors (of ONA) underlined the efforts made by the group leadership and renewed its confidence in chairman Mouatassim Belghazi," ONA said in a statement.
ONA posted 1.79 billion dirhams ($230 million) net income for the January-June period this year, up 97 percent on the 2008 period. Revenues rose to 2.6 percent to 18.3 billion dirhams.
Analysts said ONA's net profit would have come in almost flat without a one-off gain of 977 million dirhams from the sale of a 31 percent stake in its telecoms arm Wana to Kuwaiti Mobile Telecommunications Co in March. (Repoting by Lamine Ghanmi, Editing by Dan Lalor) ($1 = 7.756 Moroccan dirhams)