Fund manager Beltone Financial plans to raise about $80 million to invest in property in Cairo's historic but decaying downtown, the latest initiative to revive the fortunes of the city's commercial centre.
The funds will more than double Beltone's investments in central Cairo, and the move comes as a state firm, the Insurance Holding Co, the biggest downtown property owner, says it wants to pedestrianise many streets that are flanked by peeling neo-baroque and art deco buildings.
Developers have tended to head out of the crowded city to build luxury apartments and villas. While that boom in high-end homes has stalled, the neglected centre, home to the stock exchange and many banks, has been attracting growing interest.
"Cairo needs to re-energise its city centre. It needs to be cleaned up, it needs to be renovated," Beltone's Chief Executive Aladdin Saba said late on Tuesday, announcing plans to raise cash of 450 Egyptian pounds ($80 million).
The cash will be used to purchase buildings in addition to the 18 Beltone has already bought using a fund that now has paid-in capital of 308 million pounds.
Beltone's Saba said his firm was performing due diligence on 11 buildings, in addition to the 18 it now has.
"We are doing another round of capital raising. We are going to keep raising capital to acquire new buildings as much as we can to cover the whole area." he said.
Mahmoud Abdallah, chairman of the holding company, said on Monday he was ready to spend millions of pounds to upgrade the area once the government approved a draft plan.
"I have been asked by the (Cairo) governor to give a vision to the board, and I am going to do that next month," he said.
"If it is accepted, then we will go right away and finance the infrastructure for a pedestrian (district)," added Abdallah, whose holding company owns 70 of the buildings in the area.
The eclectic district of neo-baroque, neo-classical and art deco buildings was laid out by city planners commissioned from France in the 1860s, at the time the Suez Canal was being excavated and when Egypt was flush with cash from a cotton boom.