CAIRO: In the thick of the Egyptian real estate market - the boom and bustle of the construction, the flash and pop of the advertising - subtlety is not the most obvious virtue. But one firm is betting this could change with the entry of Gaia, a brand founded earlier this month with the inking of a LE 17 million financing deal between the fast-budding developer Sixth of October Development and Investment Company (SODIC) and Environmental Quality for Touristic Investments Company (EQTI). A family-run firm, EQTI is best known for managing the Adrère Amellal Nature Lodge in Siwa. While the new brand s origin was a bit more prosaic than that of its namesake, an Ancient Greek goddess who sprung from primordial chaos, the deal is significant for both sides. It marks one of SODIC s first and biggest forays into green industries, as well EQTI s most aggressive push toward expansion in its 13-year history. SODIC s stake in EQTI comes to about 30 percent of the smaller company s value, company representatives said. They expect this will bolster the smaller firm s finances enough to help fund three to five new sites in Egypt and eventually more outside the country s borders - a big jump for a firm that has traditionally managed one property. EQTI began in 1996, when its founder Mounir Neamatalla, a former chemical engineer, invested a chunk of his savings in a plot of land in Adrère Amellal, part of the Siwa Oasis, and founded the Siwa Sustainable Development Initiative. Everybody thought it was a crazy thing to do [at first], said Mounir Nakhla, Neamatalla s nephew and the incoming managing director of EQTI. But Neamatalla persisted. Getting started wasn t simple. To buy the land and its surrounding palm and olive groves, Neamatalla had to negotiate with over 30 Siwan families, as each family separately owned one or two trees on the plot, Nakhla said. Before creating the nature lodge, Neamatalla worked on a number of environmental projects in Egypt, including helping garbage collectors in Moqattam develop efficient recycling, an achievement that garnered him an award at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Along the way, he founded Environmental Quality International, the consultancy that eventually spawned EQTI. Nakhla, who holds a masters degree in environment and development studies from the London School of Economics, witnessed the initial discussion over the Siwa plot, and has since stayed involved with the project on a number of levels. EQTI s hallmark nature lodge now employs about 60 people in the actual hotel, he said. The company also works with another 200 Siwans on hand embroidery projects and another 200 in local farming projects, which mostly entail growing organic dates and olives for export, use in the lodge, or sale in the company s Zamalek-based shop. He has worked in Siwa for more than a decade now, he said, and has watched modernity creep into the oasis. When we went to Siwa - and I don t know if it s a good thing or not - when we went to Siwa there were no televisions. And I used to have to stand in a queue for about half an hour to reach a phone. That s in 1998. You could count the number of cars in the oasis back then, he said. Now they are a common sight, alongside motorcycles and an ever-growing number of satellite dishes. While this sort of development has brought many welcome changes, there have been problems too. The biggest is the gradual loss of water, Nakhla said. It s ridiculous to have three or four water bottling companies in Siwa, he said. We re selling the oxygen that Siwa breathes. To cope with this issue, the nature lodge limits its daily water use to the capacity of the nearby spring, Nakhla said. For us it would be ideal to dig a deep well onsite and build 500 rooms and make money off it. We don t do that. The key is balance, he said; it is a concept he mentioned often in an interview with Daily News Egypt, whether discussing the feng shui of a ceiling scaffold s alignment with a room s bed, or in the larger context of man s interaction with nature. Of course, EQTI s expansion will be a balancing act too. The cross with SODIC is, in some ways, the meeting of two ends of a spectrum. SODIC, with a market capital of nearly LE 4 billion, is highly branded and wields a sophisticated publicity arm. EQTI, valued at LE 58 million, has grown through word-of-mouth and has sworn off traditional advertising. So how to make sure the new brand isn t overexposed? It s not a question I have an answer to right now, Nakhla said. But EQTI chose to work with SODIC not just because they have money, but because they understand the smaller firm s ethos, he added. He is confident, he said, that they will also find a balance. To read the other stories in our bi-monthly special focus on Egypt s real estate and construction sectors, click here:http://thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=16385http://thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=16383http://thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=16382
