Cairo-based Al Ahly for Real Estate Development Sabbour (Al Ahly) is expecting sales to rise by around 9 percent this year to hit 6 billion Egyptian pounds ($346.6 million), up from 5.5 billion pounds in 2018, its chief executive has told Zawya.

In an interview at the Cityscape Egypt exhibition, the company’s CEO, Ahmed Sabbour, told Zawya that the company is also planning to open marketing offices in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait this year, working with joint venture partners to offer people in each market access to its projects in Egypt.

“The company carries out residential projects through Saudi and Kuwaiti partnerships, besides other residential and commercial projects, inside Egypt,” Sabbour said.

The firm has a project with Kuwaiti real estate firm Manazel Holding in New Cairo that will start “within the second half of 2019”, Sabbour said. The first phase, which involves an investment of 2.25 billion points, will see its flagship Aria compound start on site in Mostakbel City.

“The project will be carried out on a space of 108 feddans (45.4 hectares) and it will include 2,200 various villas and apartments,” Sabbour said, adding that it had begun marketing 50 percent of the units.

Its joint venture with a Saudi company, Dar Al Maaly for Development and Real Estate, is a 1 billion pound project stretching over 32.4 hectares known as Green Square. Around 45 percent of this scheme is already built, and Sabbour has said that this rate is expected to increase to 70 percent by the end of the year. The site contains 1,027 units – 75 percent of which have already been brought to market.

In total, Sabbour said that Al Ahly aims to pump around 3 billion Egyptian pounds into work on both its new projects and completing ongoing projects this year.

The company owns a land portfolio of 5 million square meters, and aims to increase this to 6 million square meters by the middle of next year, Sabbour said. 

He said that the areas of keenest interest are the New Administrative Capital and Sheikh Zayed  City, alongside New Al Alamain, Ain Sukhna and the Upper Egypt governorates.

The company is also implementing its City of Odyssia project in partnership with El Mostakbal for Development – a site with an area 242.8 hectares, which has been designed by US architects Gensler and is being project managed by Hill International.

City of Odyssia is a mixed-use residential complex set to contain Egypt’s largest multipurpose hall which will be used to showcase arts and cultural events, as well as a 50-acre central business district. The site will contain a mix of different house types set around parkland, starting from 130 square metre apartments through to duplexes, townhouses and a number of villas.  The total cost of the project, including the land, is around 25 billion pounds, according to Sabbour, but the initial central district will cost around 3.5-4 billion pounds, he added.

The company also owns several residential tourism projects outside Cairo in the North Coast area. One of these is a 2.8 billion pounds project known as Amwaj being built on a 147 hectare site, where 700 million pounds of property has been sold in three phases, with a fourth now underway.

Finally, the company is still developing plans for its Gaia beach resort on the northern coast with developer Dar Global. The 119.7 hectare site is being developed at a cost of 5 billion pounds, and work is due to start on site by the first quarter of next year, Sabbour said.

Al Ahly Real Estate Development was established in 1994 by chairman Hussein Sabbour. The Sabbour family retains a 60 percent stake in the company, while National Bank of Egypt owns the remaining 40 percent.

(Reporting by Marwa Abo Almajd; Editing by Michael Fahy)

(michael.fahy@refintiv.com)

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