The East Delta Flour Mills (EDFM) reopened its real estate investment file and formed a committee to discuss ways to utilise the company’s assets, which includes 15 lands estimated at 100 acres.
These lands, which are being used to store wheat, are located in several governorates, including Cairo, Sharqeya, Damietta, and other Suez Canal cities.
Soon after the establishment of the committee, a board of directors approved adding real estate investment in May 2015, though it postponed this move to the last quarter of 2015 to conduct adequate studies of the real estate market.
According to an official at the company who preferred to remain anonymous, the committee will “clarify the most appropriate mechanisms to penetrate the real estate investment activity with the possibility of establishing a separate department for real estate investment.”
“Adding the real estate investment activity requires holding an extraordinary general meeting to approve this step,” said the official.
The official explained that all the mills companies listed in the stock market have succeeded in adding real estate investment activity in 2015. EDFM tried to do the same, but it preferred not to add this activity due to the futility of this move to the company in the last period.
EDFM owns 13 modern mills, nine laboratories and boast three silos, each with a storage capacity of 30,000 tonnes of wheat in Sharqeya, Ismailia, and Dakahlia. It also owns a pasta plant in the industrial zone of Ismailia with a production capacity estimated at about 37 tonnes per day.
The official also confirmed that work on the company’s mills would continue at its normal pace and is not adversely affected by the corruption in the wheat crisis.
In addition, the official stressed that EDFM is still interested in communicating with the Ministry of Supply to obtain the final approval to purchase or allocate land for the company in Damietta, in order to establish a milling and grain storage food project in accordance with the government’s Logistic Centre Project.
The Logistic Centre is a massive development project put forward by the government in the field of grain storage, resale of goods and production of pasta and noodles and is to be housed on 3.3m sqm in an area to the northeast of the Damietta port. The project is scheduled for completion within two years, with an initial cost amounting to EGP 15bn.
EDFM achieved a net profit worth EGP 59m in the last fiscal year (FY), compared to EGP 42.1m in FY 2014/2015.
The current capital value of the company amounts to EGP 60m, divided into 6m shares with a nominal value of EGP 10 per share.
