Six of October Development and Investment (SODIC) has advance cheques worth EGP 4bn that have not yet been encashed, according to the company's Managing Director and board member, Maged Sherif. The company obtains advance payments and cheques covers for the full sales value in advance and before the delivery of units to customers. Sherif told Daily News Egypt that the company has a strong financial solvency, liquidity, and credit facilities that are not fully utilized, thus SODIC does not need securitisation and avoids such an activity due to its high cost. "We do not plan to launch a mortgage finance company currently, especially in light of banks' high interest rate," Sherif added, noting that his company is studying some innovative mechanisms and payment facilitations for customers wishing to buy any unit of SODIC's projects. SODIC has disbursed EGP 1.8bn of the total amount of credit facilities, amounting to EGP 3.2bn, according to Sherif. "We are in the period of disbursement of these amounts of money and there are timetables for the repayment period of each loan and facility, and we use a large part of the credit facilities this year because we started construction in the current year," Sherif said. The company's total land bank is 7m sqm. The company expects to achieve future sales of more than EGP 150bn over 10 years, he elaborated, pointing out that the company will also consider any strong and serious investment opportunity to appear in the market at any time in order to expand and diversify its projects' portfolio.
