Suez Canal Company Suez Canal Company The Universal Maritime Suez Canal Company (, or simply "Compagnie de Suez" for short) was the corporation that constructed the Suez Canal between 1859 and 1869 and operated it until the 1956 Suez Crisis. It was formed by Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1858, and it owned and operated the canal for many years thereafter. Initially, French private investors were the majority of the shareholders, with Egypt also having a significant stake. When Isma'il Pasha became Wāli of Egypt and Sudan in 1863, he refused to adhere to portions of the concessions to the Canal company made by
Suez Crisis a series of challenges to British influence in the region that would culminate in the Suez Crisis. In regard to the Arab leadership, particularly venomous was the feud between Nasser and the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri el-Said, for Arab leadership, with the Cairo-based Voice of the Arabs radio station regularly calling for the overthrow of the government in Baghdad. The most important factors that drove Egyptian foreign policy in this period was on the one hand, a determination to see the entire Middle East as Egypt's rightful sphere of influence, and on the other, a tendency on the part