💪👷 One of the most interesting real estate plays in Egypt right now belongs to someone who has no interest in becoming a developer. Omar El Ghazaly’s (LinkedIn) entire model is to be the branded operating partner with the vision and the expertise, while someone else supplies the capital. Proof of concept started more than 10 years ago with LA7, a gym unlike any other fitness facility in the market. It looked different, felt different, and it was clear from the start that the low-profile entrepreneur behind the venture knew a thing or two about branding and positioning.

Today, he runs 10 LA7 gyms in the country’s most prominent developments, the way Four Seasons runs a hotel. He has his own line of LA7wear that he would like to see on fashion runways someday, and he’s rolling out the same model in luxury housing and hotels. It’s asset-light, contrarian, and, so far, the rare thing selling in a frozen market. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

From Olympic athlete to entrepreneur

EnterpriseAM: You’re a three-time Olympics discus champ. At the age of 19, you set a junior world record, becoming the first Egyptian to hold a world athletics record of any kind. How did you go from elite sports to business, almost overnight?

Omar El Ghazaly (OEG): I injured my hip and found it impossible to sit still. It was as simple as that. I came up with the idea for a televised bodybuilding talent show (The Show), sold it to Alhayah, Almehwar, and Alrai in Kuwait, and eventually licensed it in seven countries including the US and Australia in 2015. Five of the seven countries failed.

Business lesson number one: Don’t scale something before you understand it. That's why, nine years in, LA7 still hasn't franchised locally or internationally, despite interested parties on both sides. When The Show lost momentum, I started a protein supplement brand called Sportaholics out of South Africa, where I had contacts from my days as an athlete. We were in 15 countries within six months.

Business lesson number two: Don’t dilute yourself below 50% too early. The temptation to grow too quickly resulted in a loss of control in two vital areas: marketing and maintaining the quality of the product.

Third time’s the charm

E: So what did you see in gyms that everyone else missed?

OEG: For most owners in Egypt, the gym is a side hustle, and no one is focused on operations. I wanted to put all my time and effort into creating a premium fitness facility. I had the know-how and the contacts to make it happen, but zero capital. To give my pitch a bit of momentum, I approached celebrity fitness trainer Lazar Angelov, who agreed to endorse the project — that’s where LA originally came from, not Los Angeles.

For two years, I shopped the idea around to all the big developers — nobody bought it. Until Mahmoud El Gammal, who wanted a gym for his New Giza clubhouse, decided to take a chance on me. He agreed to build and fit out the gym and to leave the concept and the operation to me. Suddenly I was a hotelier running someone else’s asset, and that became the whole model.

E: When did you open your first branch, and how rapidly did you expand?

OEG: We opened LA7 New Giza in 2017 with 860 sqm of built-up space and 450 sqm of outdoor space. Today, it’s our smallest facility in Cairo. In the summer of 2018, we went with El Gammal to Playa on the North Coast before the project was built. He was the first developer in Egypt to understand the power an anchor has to drive traffic to an empty beach so he could sell.

In 2020, we went to Uptown with Emaar, followed by a 3k sqm branch at Arkan Plaza with Badreldin. Our first New Cairo branch was Garden 8 with Misr Italia. We also have a branch at Marakez’s Aeon Tower in 6th of October. We now have our largest Cairo branch with them at District 5, two additional seasonal branches on the North Coast at Seashell and Salt & Sand, and a branch in El Gouna.

A premium experience

E: LA7 is the priciest gym in Egypt — roughly double the cost of everyone else (EGP 35-45k annually vs. EGP 20k). What does that buy?

OEG: It gets you a premium experience that you won’t find anywhere else. We were probably the first in the region to create a Chief Experience Officer role, responsible for the playlist, the smell of the place, the hygiene, the cold towels, and upkeep. At our District 5 branch, we have a barber, a hairdresser, and a nail salon built into the membership price. We even have a cooking school and — in the future — plan to have a medical and longevity hub, because the game now is health, not muscles.

I also eliminated all the things that annoy people about gyms. Most importantly, I got rid of the trainer sales-commission ladder that turned every coach into a salesman. I replaced that with a flat 50% fee for the trainer, without sales targets. The brand, not the trainer, does the selling. This meant I retained the best trainers and the clients got the best experience. Today, the rest of the market is shifting to the same model.

E: What’s next for LA7? How do you plan to scale?

OEG: We want to move forward with the medical hubs as a sub-brand of LA7 in both East and West Cairo by 2027. These will be standalone facilities with a whole new revenue stream. Members will receive a markdown, but the hubs will also be open to non-members. The flagship version of all the new services will be a 7k sqm site off the ring road in New Cairo, which we are creating with Madinet Masr.

We’re also developing a new brand called Vibe. It’s one big studio, eight stations alternating cardio and functional training, 40 seats a class, and a trainer on a mic. Everything runs off a strict playbook with sub-classes we designed ourselves. You come, you train 45 minutes, you leave. The first Vibe location will open in 4Q this year in New Cairo. This is the scalable business that I plan to franchise locally and internationally. The future globally is 200-500 sqm boutique fitness facilities like Orangetheory, Barry’s, and F45.

The pivot to real estate

E: You launched LA7 Homes with People & Places in Ras El Hekma in 2024, and now you’re entering into new real estate ventures. What’s your property pipeline?

OEG: Real estate has always been my hobby and my passion. It’s now where I focus most of my time and energy. With the rest, I delegate and I’m fortunate enough to still have the majority of my core team that has been with me from day one.

In El Gouna, we’re acquiring two hotels — Fanadir and Mosaique — and converting them into a single LA7 wellness hotel. With LMD, we have a 150-feddan project in New Zayed called Mindset Business Valley — an Egyptian Silicon Valley with garden-fronted offices and on-site services for startups — residential will follow. With Mountain View, we’ve just launched Wellth, a new luxury wellness brand with Lebanese influencer Karen Wazen and Egyptian actor Khaled El Nabawy fronting the campaign.

The inflation wager

E: In a post-devaluation, high-inflation environment, is there enough purchasing power to absorb all of this?

OEG: I believe that wellness is now the last discretionary line a high-earner cuts, and that luxury sells more, not less, in an inflationary spiral. My most expensive membership is EGP 4.5k a month, the price of one dinner for my target demographic. I think fine dining gets cut first and then maybe travel; the gym is the last thing to go. And I think the real estate projects that really distinguish themselves by offering something new are the ones that will survive. At least we hope so.