(Photo by Omar Korashi)
Daily News Egypt sat down with Omar Elhamawy, SODIC’s Chief Financial Officer, to discuss the company’s latest investments in its projects and contracted sales.
During the interview, the real estate company’s latest project in the North Coast was tackled with the official stating that the master plan for the project is expected to be finalised within a month.
In October, the company announced its plans to invest between EGP 2bn to EGP2.5bn in 2015. How much has been spent so far?
The company announced that it will invest about EGP 2.5bn this year, of which about EGP 1bn will go to contracting. We have spent about EGP 400m so far in executing the projects we have been working on, and hopefully we will meet our target by the end of the year.
The estimated client contracts were expected to be EGP 4.1bn in 2015. How far along are you in that now?
We are at about EGP 2bn on track to reach our target by the end of the year.
What about the expectations of contracted sales in 2016?
We are talking about between EGP 4.5bn to EGP 5bn.
The company recently invested in land on the north coast. What are the project’s updates?
We are currently working on the master plan. We haven’t finalised it yet, but we are hoping to launch sales by the end of this summer.
Do you have any expectations on what sales will be in that project?
That will be dependent on the finalisation of the master plan. We still haven’t decided on the type of product we will be offering and how much we will offer this year or how much we will hold for the year after.
When is the master plan expected to be finalised?
Hopefully, within the coming month or two
Do you predict to take any loans to finance this project?
That will also depend on the finalisation of the master plan but at this point there are no loans on this project. Whether we are going to seek loans or not will depend on the master plan.
How about the other projects?
We don’t have any loans for the Eastown project. For the Villette project, we have a loan from the Arab African International Bank for EGP 950m and around EGP 425 of that figure is utilised. For Westown, we have two facilities. We have EGP 300m from the Commercial International Bank (CIB), of which EGP 190m was utilised, and a syndication that is lead by the Arab African International bank, which is about EGP 900m, and we have used around EGP 470m.
When do you expect the remaining of Villette and Westown loans to be utilised?
Probably within the middle to end of next year.
What are the updates on the payment of the EGP 900m government settlement?
We have paid an EGP 100m upon signature, and the payment is over seven years. We had a one year grace period, which ended last month.
Are there any new projects that company is targeting?
There was an auction by the government a couple of months ago and we participated for a few plots between 6th of October City and New Cairo, but the results are not out yet.
