October 20, 2004

By Roy Cokayne

Pretoria - Kharafi Holdings, a Kuwait-based group with annual turnover of $4 billion (R25.5 billion), is to develop a R600 million residential estate east of Pretoria.

Mahmoud Shehata, the group managing director for Africa of Kharafi, said this week the site of the Lombardy Estate & Health Spa was acquired in 1994, two weeks after he first came to the country and stayed at a guest house on the estate.

"Thereafter, we started buying a lot of property in South Africa, including the site on which we developed the Sheraton Hotel in Pretoria at a cost of $30 million.

"We came to South Africa when others were leaving. We had good faith in the country."

Shehata said Kharafi had established Isoform, a manufacturing plant in Atlantis in Cape Town that produces isoboard.

Kharafi had also developed the R480 million Oubaai residential golf estate at Herold's Bay near George, featuring an 18-hole golf course designed by Ernie Els.

"We've invested R1.2 billion in South Africa and with this development another R600 million, which is not a small thing because we're using US designers who are not cheap," he said.

Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, a leading firm of design consultants, which worked on both The Palace of the Lost City at Sun City and uShaka Marine World in Durban, was signed up to assist with the concept and design of the Lombardy estate.

Kharafi has three divisions: construction, manufacturing, and investment and development.

Shehata said South Africa was the "kitchen" for its developments in other parts of the world.

He said two rooms in the boutique hotel at the Lombardy estate were "mock-ups" for the Sheraton in Pretoria, two for its hotel development in Albania and four for its $1.2 billion Port Ghalib development on the Red Sea.

Shehata said work on this development started four years ago and involved the construction of the Marsa Alim Airport, a marina, power and water desalination plants, and six hotels to be managed by Sun International.

"The design team all come from South Africa as well as all the materials, such as kitchen equipment, audio visual equipment, fixtures and fittings, and even specialist subcontractors."