Egyptian billionaire Hisham Talaat Moustafa's TMG wins Iraqi investment licence for $18.8 billion Baghdad mega-city project

Egypt's Talaat Moustafa Group Holding has crossed a major threshold in its Iraq ambitions, securing a formal investment licence from the Iraqi National Investment Commission to develop an integrated mixed-use city on the southwestern edge of Baghdad, with projected cumulative sales of $18.8 billion.

The licence, numbered 2026/515 and issued on May 24, 2026, was granted to Talaat Moustafa Company Baghdad, the group's Iraqi subsidiary, and covers a land bank of approximately 12.8 million square meters strategically positioned within Baghdad Financial and Economic City, near Baghdad International Airport.

The development, which will take around 16 years to build out, is designed to house roughly 250,000 residents across approximately 43,000 residential units. A further 2.3 million square meters of non-residential built-up area is planned, incorporating retail and commercial space, office and administrative buildings, schools, healthcare centers, religious and community facilities, a large sports and social club, entertainment destinations, public parks, and green zones. A regional shopping mall is among the anchor components.

TMG Holding's chief executive and managing director, Hisham Talaat Moustafa, has steered the group's regional push aggressively since 2023, when it established its Saudi Arabia platform, Talaat Moustafa Group KSA, in a 60-40 partnership with the AlMuhaidib Group, a major Saudi investment conglomerate with stakes in ACWA Power and Riyadh Cables Group. The Iraq move runs through that Saudi platform and is billed as the next pillar of the group's Gulf and Middle East expansion.

The Baghdad project grows directly out of negotiations that have been building for more than two years. In July 2024, Hisham Talaat Moustafa joined a delegation of Egyptian, Saudi, and Iraqi business leaders that met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al-Sudani in Baghdad. In May 2025, that dialogue produced a formal memorandum of understanding, signed in the presence of Prime Minister Al-Sudani and National Investment Commission chairman Haider Makiya, covering a 14 million square meter site in southwest Baghdad. The licence confirmed Monday marks the graduation of that MOU into a binding regulatory framework.

According to preliminary feasibility studies shared by TMG Holding, the project is expected to generate annual recurring revenues of approximately $108 million from leasing and hospitality assets once fully operational. The overall gross margin is projected at around 20 percent, with full sales expected within 12 years of project launch.

The Baghdad development adds an estimated $3.58 billion in land bank value to the group's portfolio. TMG Holding's total land bank has grown from 115 million square meters to approximately 128 million square meters as a result of the transaction. Its holdings across the GCC region now total nearly 28 million square meters.

TMG Holding is Egypt's largest publicly listed real estate developer, trading on the Egyptian Exchange under the ticker TMGH with total assets of 436.22 billion Egyptian pounds (approximately $8.8 billion) as of 2025. Its flagship domestic projects include Madinaty, Al Rehab, Celia in the New Administrative Capital, and the under-development Noor City east of Cairo. The group employs more than 100,000 people and has operations spanning Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and now Iraq.

The company's stated rationale for targeting Iraq centers on pent-up housing demand generated by decades of instability, favorable demographics, and significant purchasing power among an urban population that has seen relatively little large-scale modern residential development. Iraq's National Investment Commission had previously confirmed it was expecting a final agreement with TMG at the start of 2026, making the formal licence a milestone that arrived broadly on schedule.

The project is designed as a fully integrated smart city, supported by advanced digital management systems and environmentally conscious infrastructure. TMG has positioned the Baghdad development as an export of the community model it refined over decades in Egypt, adapting it to Iraq's market conditions while aiming to contribute to the country's broader push toward urban modernization and infrastructure transformation.