Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopolis Oases Company

The Cairo Electric Railways & Heliopolis Oases Company, is ), 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. History On May 20, 1905, the Egyptian government signed a concession to develop a large desert plot of 25 square kilometres north-east of Cairo, with Belgian industrialist Édouard Empain and Boghos Nubar Pasha, son of the former Egyptian Prime Minister Nubar Pasha. The Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopolis Oases Company itself was established by the two entrepreneurs and 22 other investors and companies on February 14, 1906 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.