By Reuters
CAIRO: Real estate company Egyptian Resorts posted a narrower full-year loss, helped by new revenue from its Sawari project on the Red Sea.
Egyptian Resorts said on Sunday it made a 2011 net loss of LE 7.4 million ($1.2 million), compared with a LE 9.1 million loss in 2010. Revenue nearly doubled to LE 28.2 million.
The company has not sold any land to developers since the third quarter of 2008 when the global financial crisis reduced appetite for big real estate purchases in Egypt.
Egyptian Resorts, hit by political turmoil since president Hosni Mubarak was ousted, has been working with Orascom Development Holding to develop land for Sawari, a mixed-use development that will include a marina on a 2.5 million square-meter plot at Sahl Hasheesh on the Red Sea.
Its chief executive told Reuters in October it expected sales of LE 2.2 billion from Sawari’s first phase.
The company said on Sunday it expected to start construction on the project in the third quarter, but was still waiting for licenses from authorities.
Real estate firms in Egypt sell units off-plan or before they are fully constructed and delivered to their clients, meaning Egyptian Resorts reported LE 10.8 million revenue from Sawari for 2011.
The company, like other developers in the Arab world’s most populous nation, is reeling from challenges to state land purchases that started before last year’s uprising and which have gathered pace since.
It said the impact of the uprising on the tourism sector, where the number of visiting tourists has slumped 33 percent, was partly to blame for the net loss.
Egyptian Resorts shares were down 3.5 percent at 1303 GMT, with Egypt’s main index 2.0 percent lower.
