Fact Sheet: Heliopolis Housing and Development

Who Owns Cairo: Case Study Companies

Overview

Name: Heliopolis Housing and Development SAE HELI.CA

Established: January 1906

Nationalized:1961

Listed on the EGX: 1995

Scope and activities: The company engages in the construction and housing projects. The Company’s operations include land reclamation and subdivision, residential real estate development and management, real estate property purchase and sale, real estate projects planning and supervising, as well as the construction of homes, hotels, holiday resorts, touristic villages and cities, administrative and educational buildings, factories, and hospitals. The company also works on the distribution and sale of electricity, and it provides its investors with technical consultation if needed.^[1]

Company Vitals:

How much land does HELI own in Cairo?

HELI has the second largest landbank in Cairo under the de jure method (see Methodology) at 6441 acres (See Appendix A). This is mostly desert land in the new cities and does not include land in older parts of the Heliopolis district in Cairo that is already built on, with the exception of some large commercial assets. However, HELI’s landholdings fall to 5786 acres under the control method (see Methodology), ranking it third among the case study companies. This makes it the only company in this case study to have significantly more de jure land than it does under control, as well as significantly less land in 2021 than it did at its peak of 7241 acres in 2010 (Figure 1) as it acts more as a master developer, selling land plots and entering into co-development agreements, more than it builds its own developments. It is also worthy to note that even though HELI has been listed over 25 years ago, it has not bought a single land plot in Cairo since relying on the landbank it was given by the state when it was still (fully) government owned.

Figure 1: HELI landbank accumulation analysis – Control Method 2002-2021 (Acres). Sources: See Appendix A

Who Owns HELI?

HELI was founded in 1906 to develop the eponymous Heliopolis district of Cairo. The company was nationalized in 1961 and remained a state owned enterprise (SOE) until it was listed on the EGX in 1995. Despite this, it is still very much an SOE as the Government of Egypt is its single major shareholder, where the Ministry of Public Business Sector owns 72% of its shares through the Holding Company for Construction and Development (HCCD) (Figure 2). Its second-largest shareholder by far is another government, that of Norway, whose Norges Bank owns 1.19% of HELI. A handful of funds own around 1% of the company, and one-quarter of its stock is held by unidentifiable smallholders on the EGX free float.

Figure 2: HELI shareholding structure according to the UBO method as of 2021 Q4 (See Appendix B and Methodology)

Investor Nationalities

Given that the Government of Egypt is the single largest shareholder by far, and the stock market free float, Egyptians hold 85% of HELI (Figure 3), and that is under the tax residence method (see Methodology) . The second largest group is that of unidentifiable smallholders on the EGX free float holding about 13% of the company. In distant third is Norway (1.19%), followed by funds in the USA (0.85%) and Italy (0.10%).

Under the UBO method (see Methodology) , investors from Egypt remain the largest holders by far at 85%, while holdings of the investment funds shift to the ‘unknown’ category, raising it slightly to almost 14%. Norway is the third largest shareholder at 1.19% of HELI.

Figure 3: HELI shareholding by nationality under the TR and UBO methods

Investor Types

SOEs represent the single largest investor type by far, holding 73% of HELI (Figure 4). The second largest group are smallholders on the EGX free float owning 26% of the company. These are followed by listed companies or funds (0.7%) then private non-listed companies (0.3%).

Figure 4: HELI shareholding by investor type – UBO

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Appendix A: Landholding Information

Appendix B: Shareholding Information

Direct Shareholding:

Indirect Shareholding:

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^[1] Heliopolis Company for Housing & Development Consolidated Financial Statements for the year ended 31.12.2020, p.1