Naguib Sawiris
Naguib Sawiris, the owner of Grenada’s newest upscale resort, Silversands was invited to Grenada by a good friend who said “I have to come here and see this place” from that time …he never looked back!
Staying at the prestigious “Spice Beach Resort ” on Grand Anse Beach, and spending days walking the beach and generally enjoying everything Grenada had to offer, the beginnings of a love affair commenced between a country pure and Egypt’s richest man.
The Sawiris family, are known to be Egypt’s richest family and are listed as the 4th richest Arabs in the world. He made his fortune in Telecoms in his native Egypt. With literally the world as his oyster, Naguib could’ve invested in any country On the planet, but he chose Pure Grenada.
His company, Orascom Telecom has investments in media and technology enterprises through out Northern Africa, The Middle East and the Far East.
Back in 2015, Naguib caught the world’s attention by offering to buy a Mediterranean island from Greece or Italy to house the world’s refugees particularly those fleeing from Syria. Clearly the billionaire philanthropist has a level of generosity rare and unique in todays cut throat world. “I want to feel good about having done something good. Provide me with the island and I will do the rest.” He stated…Noble & Generous intentions indeed…it came as no surprise the relevant authorities declined to accept his proposal preferring chaos than one man’s simple solution to an increasingly dire humanitarian situation.According to the Los Angeles Times, Naguib Sawiris “has emerged as a provocative voice in post-revolutionary Egypt.” The billionaire businessman now claims 4.7million Twitter followers and posts updates daily.
However his Love Affair with Grenada started when “I acquired this land on my first visit here. As I walked the beach I saw this “For Sale” sign right here where Silversands now occupies and I told Danny (My good friend who recommended Grenada to me in the first place) “just go and make sure I get it.” He informed me “No …there are better places I could buy” but I love this beach and wanted this spot, so I bought it within days of being here.”
“I soon learnt that there was not enough Hotel rooms on the island to encourage airlift and also there was a need for a very high end resort fit for the rich and the famous. My belief is once you can attract this clientele then people will start talking more and more about Grenada and more people will want to come.”
“The site is 10.5 acres. I fell in Love with the island and the people. The People here are astonishing. Very friendly very genuine laid back and very friendly and hospitable. They have made me feel very welcome here. I have been to other islands but for me Grenada is the absolute best. Barbados has been spoilt by over tourism and thats what we want to avoid here. You can’t see my hotel as the style of it helps it to blend in, everything remains perfect and untouched. The Beach is beautiful and the greenery is lush.”
“From the welcoming people to the Prime Minister everybody has been very good to us. The government has been extremely pro-active and have offered its support to us at every step of the way.”
“As an investor this is exactly what we want – a friendly government that is supportive and not bureaucratic but a Government with integrity and I must say this government has all of that! The one thing investors do not need in a country is bureaucracy and corruption.”
“We have invested over $120million usd in Grenada and created many many jobs here. The concessions we have received is very small compared to what we bring to the country.
“We have contributed over 1,000 jobs to Grenada from concept and this number continues to grow. Our positive experience here, has resulted in us planning to build another 4 or 5 hotels here and probably increase the island room stock by another 500 rooms.”
“We did have a one year delay to the development of this property however the guys did their best but it’s a new type of construction. Even when Sandals came to Grenada they raised the level of construction on the island, so we too have also raised the standard as it was a different way of construction. We are pleased to work with local contractors of Creative Designs and Quinn Co. This is the most expensive hotel ever built on Grenada with only Calivigny Island perhaps costing more to develop.
“We prefer to work with local contractors however the import of specialized labour was necessary for specific scopes that were not avaiable on the island.
“We are proud to say that 95% of the work done on Silversands was completed by a local workforce and Grenadians should be proud of that.
“We are learning all the time from our own mistakes so part of the problems we experienced was our own fault as we did not expect certain shipping procedures to be so complicated but we are now in a good place and when we build phase 2 and beyond, we will be in a great position to make things more efficient.
“When I came and saw the finished product I was stunned. Even in my best imagination I did not believe this resort would turn out to be so spectacular as it is. Mr Sawiris states proudly.
“We have the longest Pool in the Caribbean with an infinity edge that looks like it goes straight into the Caribbean Sea. It makes the resort very visually stunning.
The resort has a total 52 Rooms including the Villas, accommodating 104 heads on beds at this time. Of the nine Villas up for sale at Siversands, they have already sold 2.
“We are a Government approved CBI Real Estate project” states Naguib Sawiris, “although we haven’t maximized this yet, and so far, this entire project has been self funded. However we do hope in the future that we can offer CBI Investors a great product to invest in, obtain citizenship and have a property that goes back into our rental pool and provide an excellent return on investment of around 10%.
Naguib continues “I like the CBI program because I think it could be very good thing for Grenada as the island has a small population, but a good passport, that accesses many countries.
Beach Villas at SilverSands currently sell for around $14 million usd and the hillside villas go for around $8 million usd.
Each villa sits on a land size of around 27,000 sq ft and are sold as freehold properties. “We could have easily built 2 villas on the same plot size and further more if you look at the other islands and compare a like for like product with us, then you are looking at spending somewhere in the region of $25-27 million usd for a similar property so we are still very competitively priced.
“However we are not under any pressure to sell the Villas as we do rent them for $16,000 USD per night. So if we rent out a villa for 3 months in a year that is already a return on investment of around 6%. So buying one on our villas represents a very smart investment as the dollar only gives 2% return, but if you put it into our rental program we can deliver anywhere up to around 10 % ROI.
“Silversands have opted to develop their own management company that runs the hotel and are certified as one of The Leading Hotels of the World.
“We chose to have our own management company as we are offering a very high level of personal service and we were not convinced that an outside company could keep the standards we wanted to achieve, so we have made our own management company to deal with this,” states Naguib enthusiastically.
“I envisage Phase 2 to commence by the end of the year 2019 – beginning 2020 as we are now in the design phase and we plan to design all of our future hotels in the coming year, also we need to retrain & re-staff our management so that we are ready for the next phase.
In conclusion Naguib Sawiris is a man very happy with his investment in Grenada, and he proudly states
“I walk the beach everyday and I see my fellow Grenadians greet me and salute me and I greet and salute them back” says the billionaire owner who always seems to have a playful glint in his eyes.
“They can all see that I have not interfered with the beach in any way and it is still here for them. The beach is for everyone and we don’t want it for ourselves…The idea is that people come here to Grenada and enjoy the land in its entirety. We want to embrace everything in Grenada with a good will. We do not want to make any enemies of the Grenadian people.”
“We hope our relationship with Grenada remains fruitful and mutually beneficial for all.” The billionaire owner concludes BusinessGrenada concurs.
St George’s, Grenada