Orascom Developments — Full Towns, Not Just Compounds, Across Egypt

Orascom Developments is an Egyptian real-estate and hospitality company listed on the Egyptian Exchange under EGX:ORHD, and the largest Egyptian subsidiary of Swiss parent Orascom Developments Holding (ODH), which owns 75% of its shares against a 25% free float, per ODE’s own investor-relations page. The company does not build isolated residential compounds — it builds full towns that combine residences, hotels, marine facilities, offices and retail in one place, best illustrated by El Gouna, which the parent group itself describes as an all-year-round coastal town.

The company’s story began in 1989 with businessman Samih Sawiris’s vision to build El Gouna on Egypt’s Red Sea coast; the current Orascom Developments legal entity was incorporated, per differing sources, in either 1995 or on 30 August 1996 under its former name, Orascom Hotels and Development, and listed on the Egyptian Exchange in June 1998. Today the company holds a 51.25 million sqm land bank in Egypt alone (20.10 million sqm completed, 5.36 million sqm under construction), plus 24 hotels with roughly 5,000 rooms and about 7,000 employees nationwide, per the official site, August 2026 data.

Orascom Developments’ five destinations span five genuinely different settings: El Gouna on the Red Sea, O West in 6th of October City west of Cairo, Makadi Heights near Hurghada, Byoum on Lake Qarun in Fayoum, and Taba Heights on the Gulf of Aqaba in South Sinai, which has today converted fully into a hospitality-only destination with no active residential product. The company’s board is chaired by Eskandar Tooma, with Ashraf Nessim serving as Chief Executive Officer, per the official governance page.