Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has submitted a bid to purchase the symbolic former headquarters of Egypt’s now-dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP), aiming to convert the site into a luxury hotel complex, a senior cabinet source told Al Manassa.
The plot on Cairo’s Nile Corniche spanning roughly 16,500 square meters has drawn intense interest from investors across the Gulf and beyond, owing to its prime location near key landmarks and its loaded history as the seat of the ruling party during Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.
In November, a joint Qatari-Egyptian consortium was nearing a deal to redevelop the site, while Egypt’s sovereign wealth fund continued to review multiple proposals, as reported by Enterprise.
Among the rejected contenders was a Saudi-Emirati alliance comprising Al Shafar General Contracting and the Saudi Egyptian Construction Company. The group had originally secured the bid in 2023, but withdrew the following year as the Egyptian pound collapsed and building costs surged.
According to Bloomberg, the government received 11 offers in November to acquire the NDP site at Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square. Most were dismissed for being “undervalued,” with officials insisting the land’s value must exceed 1 billion Egyptian pounds, citing its strategic visibility and investment potential.
The cabinet source said the Qatari proposal will undergo financial and technical review, alongside bids from Gulf, foreign, and Egyptian firms. But many of these offers were discarded due to their failure to meet the government’s high valuation threshold.
Back in August 2023, Egypt’s tourism and investment sub-fund divided ownership of the land between two firms—Nylos for Hotel and Commercial Services (14.37%) and Nylos for Residential Services (85.63%). Both are Egyptian joint-stock companies operating under the 2015 Investment Law.
In the same month, Elhamy El-Zayat, then head of the state’s real estate and tourism sub-fund, announced plans for a $5 billion development project on the site, which would include a 220-meter commercial and residential tower.
In 2020, a presidential decree transferred ownership of several public benefit properties, including ministries and government offices, from the state to The Sovereign Fund of Egypt, a private investment fund.
The bid from Qatar is part of the El-Sisi government’s broader privatization drive, which seeks to extract value from underused or neglected public assets through partial or full sell-offs to foreign and local private interests.
