CAIRO: SODIC, one of Egypt’s largest listed real estate developers, plans to invest 2.4bn Egyptian pounds ($336m) in 2015 and is hunting for new projects as the sector recovers from three years of turmoil, its managing director said.
Many large real estate contracts were cancelled in the wake of the revolt and investment dried up. Three years on, the economy is showing the first signs of recovery, bringing an uptick in demand for property in the Arab world’s most populous country.
Speaking at the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit, Ahmed Badrawi was bullish, saying it was a good time to invest in the sector with SODIC likely to have made 2.5bn pounds worth of investments by the end of this year.
“We are also targeting investments worth 2.4bn pounds next year,” he said, adding that the figure could rise if SODIC takes on new projects on the Mediterranean coast or elsewhere.
“The market is strong and that is why we are investing strongly...We are planning for the next five years. We see this as the right time to expand strongly inside Egypt and that is why we have bought the new land and increased our capital.”
SODIC will complete a deeply discounted 1bn pound capital increase on the Egyptian stock exchange on Thursday.
Badrawi said two-thirds of that money would be invested in a new project in the upscale Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, while the rest would be dedicated to new land SODIC is seeking to buy either on the northern coast or outside the sprawling capital.
SODIC plans to begin construction and offer the first phase of units in the mixed-use development on its 1.3 million-square meter site in Heliopolis before the end of the year. Reuters
