Talaat Moustafa Group, Egypt’s biggest listed property developer, said on Wednesday it has bought out Kingdom Hotel Investments’ stake in a Four Seasons hotel in Cairo as it builds up its hotel business.
The company said in a statement its $145 million purchase of Kingdom’s minority stake gives it full ownership of the hotel, which overlooks the river Nile in the upmarket neighborhood of Garden City.
The firm is bolstering its hotel and commercial leasing businesses to shield itself from the relative volatility of home sales. It now has 875 operational hotel rooms and wants to have 5,000 within five years, it said.
Many Egyptian real estate developers, including Talaat Moustafa, do not fully recognize revenues until they hand over units to customers, meaning it can take years for some sales revenue to show up on a firm’s income statements.
