Samer Choucair: Thndr Is Redistributing Egyptian Savings Across Gold, Real Estate, and Fixed Income
Investment leader Samer Choucair said Thndr’s plan to launch a multi-issuance real estate fund in Egypt before the end of 2026, with a targeted size of approximately EGP 300 million per issuance, represents more than the introduction of another investment product.
According to Choucair, the move will test the market’s ability to transform real estate from an asset traditionally owned in full by an individual into a financial instrument that can be divided, priced, traded, and exited more efficiently.
Samer Choucair added that the planned real estate fund, alongside a fixed-income fund expected in September and following a gold fund that attracted around EGP 1 billion in its first month, reflects a gradual change in Egyptian savings behavior away from physical gold and direct property ownership toward regulated investment vehicles.
An Expanding Savings Platform
Since its establishment in 2020, Thndr has evolved from an equity-trading platform into a broader ecosystem encompassing trading, investment funds, and asset management.
At the end of 2025, the company received asset-management and portfolio-management licenses from Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority. In July 2026, its real-estate investment arm was also licensed to operate as a fund company.
Thndr is targeting the launch of its multi-issuance real estate fund before the end of the year, with each issuance expected to reach approximately EGP 300 million. It also plans to introduce a fixed-income fund in September and has expressed longer-term interest in hedge funds.
Egyptians have invested approximately EGP 50 billion through the platform, of which around EGP 30 billion, or roughly 60%, is invested in funds. Total transactions executed through Thndr have exceeded EGP 1 trillion over six years.
Real Estate Versus Interest Rates
The expansion comes as the Central Bank of Egypt has kept its overnight deposit rate at 19%, its lending rate at 20%, and its main operation and discount rate at 19.5% across consecutive meetings during the summer of 2026.
Headline inflation eased to 12.7% in August from 13% in July, while urban inflation stood at 14.5%.
Samer Choucair said the real estate fund should not be viewed as competing directly with Treasury bills on short-term nominal yield.
Instead, its investment proposition lies in inflation protection, a lower entry ticket through fractional exposure, and greater relative liquidity compared with the purchase of an entire property unit.
A Real Estate Fund Market Taking Shape
The net assets of six licensed real estate funds reached approximately EGP 12.6 billion by the end of the second quarter of 2026, compared with around EGP 9 billion in the previous quarter.
Average returns increased from 2.9% to 3.5%, while real estate funds still represented only around 2.68% of the 224 investment funds operating in the market as of June.
Choucair noted that the Financial Regulatory Authority is reviewing more than 20 new applications in addition to dozens of pending requests.
Meanwhile, the net assets of Egypt’s investment-fund industry increased to approximately $7.8 billion by the end of March 2026 from $5.97 billion at the end of 2025, with individual investors owning roughly 74% of fund certificates.
Competition for Assets and Liquidity
Thndr is in discussions with developers, including Madinet Masr, over the creation of an income-generating fund based on completed or operational assets rather than financing properties still under construction.
Elsewhere in the market, a Talaat Moustafa Group unit, in partnership with CI Capital, has established the Awaed fund, backed by leased commercial assets and an announced capital base of EGP 8 billion.
Banque Misr is also preparing a real estate fund of approximately EGP 3 billion.
Companies including Nawy Shares and Madinet Masr, through Safe, are also moving into fractional ownership, while a Saudi-Egyptian alliance announced in August a cross-border real estate fund between Egypt and Saudi Arabia that could reach SAR 1 billion during its first year.
Samer Choucair said the eventual winner will not be determined by which platform distributes the product.
“The deciding factors will be the quality of the leased asset, valuation discipline, the independence of the operating manager, and the clarity of the distribution and exit policy,” Choucair said.
A Gateway to the Gulf
Thndr has received preliminary approval to conduct brokerage activity in Saudi Arabia and is targeting the launch of operations in early 2027, following its remote operating presence in the Abu Dhabi market.
The company has announced approximately $37.8 million in financing to date, including $15.7 million in a later funding round.
Choucair said Gulf expansion could eventually transform Thndr from a brokerage platform into a capital-allocation bridge between Egypt and the Gulf, provided it can establish consistent standards for disclosure and governance across markets.
A More Selective Investment Environment
Samer Choucair concluded that the first EGP 300 million issuance will not compete with the largest funds in terms of scale.
Its significance instead lies in whether a digital investment platform can convert individual investors into a sustainable liquidity base for a regulated real estate asset.
Choucair said Egyptian savings in 2026 are increasingly being distributed across three broad areas: high-yield fixed income, gold as a hedge, and selective real estate exposure designed to provide income and a link to tangible assets.
The success of the fund, he argued, should not be measured solely by the size of its first close.
The more important test will be whether Thndr can repeatedly launch new issuances while maintaining asset quality, governance standards, and credible exit mechanisms.
“Egyptian real estate is slowly moving from the ‘whole unit’ to the ‘financial certificate,’” Samer Choucair said.
If that transition succeeds, he added, it could ultimately change the weight of real estate not only inside individual portfolios, but also within institutional investment allocations.