Private | |
Founded | February 2, 1906 |
Founder | Édouard Empain |
Headquarters | 28 Ibrahim El Lakani St., Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt |
Key people
|
Mohamed El Shahwy (Chairman of the Board) |
Services | Till December 31, 1991: Heliopolis’ tram management. Utilities management for Heliopolis. (ie: water, power, roads...) |
EGP 74,280,000 (2006) |
|
Total assets |
EGP 74,171,000(2006) |
Number of employees
|
933 |
Website | HeliopolisCompany.com |
The Cairo Electric Railways & Heliopolis Oases Company (Egyptian Arabic: شركة سكك حديد مصر الكهربائية و واحات عين شمس), is the original name of the Heliopolis Company for Housing and Development (Egyptian Arabic: شركة مصر الجديدة للإسكان و التعمير), a company formed in Cairo in 1906 in a partnership between a consortium of Belgian developers led by Édouard Empain and Boghos Nubar Pasha, son of the former Egyptian Prime Minister Nubar Nubarian.
Though a railway company by name, the company played just as great a role as a property development company once the company acquired a very large area (25 square kilometers) northeast of Cairo, where the ancient city of Heliopolis once stood.
On that land the company built, Galaxy company in effect, a new city called the Heliopolis Oasis with rail and tramway links to the centre of Cairo. Not only did the company build a great number of houses and apartments, but also the Heliopolis Palace Hotel (which is now the Egyptian Presidential Palace), restaurants, shops, churches, mosques, and hospitals. Upon completion some parts of the project were sold off as separate companies.
On September 23, 1905, the world celebrated the official date of this new hotel. Conceived by Belgian architect Ernest Jaspar,his birth boasted 400 shows including 55 private shows.
Its banquet halls were amongst the biggest anywhere. The utilities were the state of the art technology of the time. All had been constructed and put together by the contracting firms Leon Rolin & Co. and Padova, Dentamaro & Ferro, the biggest two civil contractors in Egypt. Siemens-Schuckert of Berlin fitted the hotel's web of electric cables and installations.