CAIRO - Shaking off a year without land sales, real estate company Egyptian Resorts is mulling new sectors for land sales and is marketing itself to regional and international developers, its chief executive said late Thursday. The company has made most of its money selling land in a large plot on Egypt's Red Sea coast to tourism-focused developers, but it is now considering buying more land to replicate this model in sectors such as industry, Mohamed Kamel said in an interview. "We are all determined not to be a one project company," he said, adding this could help bolster sales if one sector took a prolonged dip. "If you're not selling in a resort development, you could be selling in an industrial development or in a residential development," he said. The company is open to buying land near Cairo, but is also considering areas such as Egypt's Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts and the Sinai peninsula, Kamel said. Shares in Egyptian Resorts have climbed over 8 percent since April 8 after Rowad Tourism sold a roughly 5 percent stake in the company and another investor bought a similar amount. Both Egyptian Resorts and Rowad have declined to name the buyer. Asked whether the company's board of directors might soon see a new addition, Kamel said: "Potentially yes. Any significant shareholder has the right to request a board seat. And the board will not unreasonably withhold such a request." The company plans to start offering plots on the third phase of its 41 million square metre Sahl Hasheesh development in about six months, Kamel said. As it moves forward, it will be targeting international and Middle East developers, who only make up about 5 percent of their clients now, Kamel said. The company has sold land for as much as $200 per square metre, but has not sold a plot since the third quarter of 2008. The sale of a 44,354 square metre plot to a Saudi Arabian investor, announced by the company in January, did not go through. Kamel said he could not predict when the company would make its next sale, but he saw signs of improvement. "A year ago, the phone wasn't even ringing. Now we see some interest coming back from some developers. We've had significant inquiries. We're following up on these inquiries," he said. But "clearly, the excitement of 2007 and 2008 is met with skepticism these days by a lot of investors and developers," he added. The company has enough cash and receivables to weather three to four years without selling land, Kamel said.
