By Asmaa Nabil Misr Real Estate Assets (MREA) has purchased 27.3 thousand metres of land from the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and Banque Misr, valued at EGP 300 million. An official at Banque Misr said that MREA won the auction held last month for the two plots of land as part of plan to settle public sector debts in return for EGP 300 million. The first plot is 22,000 square metres, and is located in Smouha, Alexandria. The second plot is 5,000 square metres and is located in Abbaseya. The MREA aims to use these areas of land for complete residential projects. MREA used land valued at EGP 1 billion from both NBE and Banque Misr to develop a large residential and administrative project. The rate of settlements reached by NBE and Banque Misr significantly declined after the January 25th revolution due to the stagnant economy. The banks took in only EGP 550 million in land sales during the last year and a half. NBE and Banque Misr signed settlement contracts for public sector debts. These debts were considered the largest in the banks' portfolio of defaulted debts, as they were valued at more than EGP 14 billion. Banks and the business sector had previously reached settlements of EGP 23 billion for debts valued at EGP 50 billion. The two banks used the assets they had acquired as a result of public sector debts to establish a subsidiary company to manage these assets. They also negotiated earlier with Ministry of Trade and Industry to use part of lands acquired in settlements for investment projects.
