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In a brief note yesterday, Ameinfo announced that The Kuwait-based Gulf Investment House has withdrawn from financing the Majan Development Company's bid to build a one billion dollar (RO400 million) healthcare city adjacent to the Blue City development.

Who, or what, is the Majan Development Company? The Khaleej Times helpfully obliges:

Majan Development Company, MDC, with an authorised capital of RO40 million and paid up capital of RO25 million, has been founded by a group of investors in the region with Kuwait-based Gulf Investment House (GIH) holding a 50 per cent stake.

The other partners are the Pension Fund of Oman's Ministry of Defence, Sharjah Islamic Bank and Real Estate Trading Company (10 per cent each), Public Authority for Social Insurance (nine per cent) Oman-UAE Exchange Company (five per cent), Oman Cement Company (four per cent) and the Pension Fund of the Royal Guard of Oman (two per cent).

Inspired by the potential returns on real estate investment in Oman, the Sharjah Islamic Bank declared in May this year that it had taken a ten percent stake in the company, putting the value of MDC at over $100 million ($1 billion).

The head of the bank's investment group said that they had carried out "a feasibility study [ ] which yielded positive results with regard to the Omani real estate market."

The healthcare city venture was announced only in March 2008. Bashar Nasser Al Tiwaijri (also spelt Tuwajiri), Senior Manager, Direct Investment, GIH, said at a news conference that

the proposed healthcare city, to be built on an area of one million square metres in Al Sawadi allotted by the Ministry of Tourism, some 100kms from Muscat, would comprise medical colleges, hospitals, hotels, conference halls and shopping malls.

Work on the first phase of the project, to be carried out on a build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis, will start by next year. At the end of the BOT period, it will be handed over to the government.

GIH too had asked an international consultancy to carry out a feasibility study, which had been positive. The GIH stake in MDC is variously said to be 20 percent or 50 percent, depending on which news report you read.

Nonetheless, Ameinfo quoted MEED yesterday as saying that GIH had abandoned its plans for the healthcare city. No reason was given.

No connection with Blue City has ever been declared, and the current turmoil in financial markets means that funds for investment are much harder to come by, if not funds on an individual basis with which to buy property, but one wonders...