The Cairo Electric Railways & Heliopolis Oases Company () was formed in Cairo, Egypt in 1906 to develop a 25 square kilometer plot of land into the Heliopolis suburb. It was nationalised in 1960, and remained a state-owned enterprise until it was listed on the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange (now the Egyptian Exchange, or EGX) in 1995 and renamed the Heliopolis Company for Housing and Development (). as a property development company to build the Heliopolis Oasis near where the ancient city of Heliopolis once stood.

The new suburb was planned with rail and tramway links to the centre of Cairo, and consisted of plots for villas, Heliopolis style apartment blocks, workers' housing, the Heliopolis Palace Hotel (converted later into a presidential palace), restaurants, shops, churches, mosques, a synagogue, and hospitals.

In 1955, the company was instructed by the government according to Law 123/1955, to prepare 1,500 400m<sup>2</sup> plots of land in five new neighbourhoods on its desert concession to be sold at LE1.45 per square meter primarily to government employees or members of housing cooperatives approved by the Cairo municipality.

The post-independence socialist government of Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the company in 1961, turning it into the public Masr al-Gadida Suburb Organisation () and affiliated to the Ministry of Municipal and Village Affairs, taking on the real estate development business. By 1964 the company was renamed as the Heliopolis Company for Housing and Development ().

As part of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank's Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment Programme, or ERSAP, the company was part of a privatisation programme and was listed in 1996 on the Egyptian Exchange and has the Reuters code of HELI.CA. As of 2021, the government of Egypt was still the majority shareholder, with its Holding Company for Construction and Development owning 72% of the company, while the second-largest shareholder by far was the government of Norway, whose Norges Bank owned 1.19%.

World Wars and after

During World War I and II, the hotel was transformed into a military hospital for British soldiers. <br />

After World War II, air travel reduced the average tourist stay to a few days. As tourism became a mega-industry, massive hotels emerged in Egypt with interiors calculated on the basis of return per square meter. Unable to compete, the hotel became less popular.

References

  • Heliopolis Company for Housing and Development’s homepage