EnterprisePM — Egypt’s Cheiron and the UK’s Cairn to acquire Shell’s Western Desert assets in a transaction worth up to USD 926 mn

Good afternoon, friends. It’s another busy news day here at home with a nearly USD 1 bn M&A in the petroleum industry dominating the conversation on Egypt this afternoon as our friends at Cheiron join Cairn to buy out Shell’s operations in the Western Desert. Meanwhile, we have word that private equity veteran Hossam Abou Moussa is joining financial services specialist Apis and our Analyst of the Week is Beltone’s Abanob Magdy.

It’s shaping up to be a hell of a week for M&A when you throw in yesterday’s news of the Saudi PIF’s offer to take driller ADES International private and Banque Misr’s ongoing bid to acquire up to 90% of CI Capital.

THE BIG STORY abroad Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal are looking forward to the opening bell on Wall Street later today, saying futures show tech stocks about to rally after they entered correction territory yesterday. Meanwhile, the Financial Times is leading with the OECD’s estimate that Joe Biden’s USD 1.9 tn in covid-19 stimulus could add one percentage point to global growth this year. OECD sees the world economy growing 5.6% this year, up from its November forecast of 4.2%.

But Enterprise, what’s a “correction”? It’s just fancy-talk for shares being down 10% or more from a recent high. It means “watch this space,” but it’s not (necessarily) a sign the apocalypse is nigh. That’s a “bear market,” which we hit when securities are 20% or more below a recent high.

CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from this morning’s edition of EnterpriseAM:

• Private companies will not be allowed to independently provide covid-19 vaccines to the public, Cabinet said, although at least one has been given permission to import vaccines for sale to a government agency.
• President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has ordered Maglis El Dowla to appoint women to the bench; he has also directed that more women be hired at the Supreme Judicial Council and the Prosecutor General’s Office.
• As many as 5 mn casual workers are sitting idle, an industry lobby group says, as the result of a government-mandated work stoppage to crack down on building code violations.

YOUR MANDATORY COVID STORY- The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine works as well against the Brazilian and UK “mutant” strains as it does against the one discovered last year, according to researchers at the University of Texas showed writing in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. While the research still needs to be validated with real-world data, the results offer another reason for optimism, writes Bloomberg.

???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

Photopia’s Cairo Photo Week 2021 kicks off this Thursday and runs through 20 March. The photo festival will feature over 100 activities including workshops, panels, photo challenges, exhibitions, portfolio reviews and photo walks throughout the week, all led by more than 80 local and international photographers. Genres including fashion, food, portraits, documentary and photojournalism are all in the spotlight. You can check out the event program on Photopia’s website, there’s plenty to look at on the group’s Instagram feed @cairophotoweek, and both physical and virtual tickets are available here.

Also on Thursday: The next iteration of Le Marché, an anchor of the annual expo scene, takes place 11-14 March at the Egypt International Convention Centre, with over 300 local and international brands set to showcase their wares. Full details and digital catalogue on the show’s website.

The Cairo Fashion & Textile Expo trade show is set to open at the Cairo International Convention Center on Thursday, running through 13 March.

Higher education fair EduGate is running until Thursday at Kempinski Royal Maxim on The Ring Road. Participants include universities, colleges and training institutions as well as scholarship and grant providers. There’s also an online-only version taking place 18-20 March.

The Marketers League runs this Saturday and Sunday, 13-14 March, at Kundalini Grand Pyramids Hotel in Giza. This year’s theme is Beyond the Pandemic with panelists and speakers including our friend Tarek Nour (founder of Tarek Nour Communications), Ayman Hegazi (CEO of Allianz), Sherine Zaklama (CEO, Rada Research and Public Relations), and Walid Hassouna (CEO, EFG Hermes Finance).

Life coach Arfeen Khan is giving a talk at a virtual AmCham event on Monday, 15 March.

Talking sustainable manufacturing with BEBA: The British-Egyptian Business Association (BEBA) will host a virtual conference on how Egyptian and UK firms can work together on sustainable manufacturing projects in Africa in the post-Brexit environment on Tuesday, 23 March. Check out the agenda here (pdf).

AUC Press’s Mad March book sale will be ongoing for the rest of the month. The sale is open to the general public every day from 10am–6pm CLT at AUC Tahrir Bookstore & Garden.

???? FOR YOUR COMMUTE-

BTC is back up again, hitting a two-week high as more institutional investors eye the cryptocurrency, reports Bloomberg. The digital token rose as much as 4.3% and was trading at about USD 53.9k, still below its all-time high of USD 58.35k, which it hit last month. Longer-term investors such as family offices, insurers and corporate treasurers are mulling exposure to BTC, prompting Goldman Sachs to restart its cryptocurrency trading desk. Evercore ISI strategist Rich Ross saying Bitcoin is in a “strong position” to reach USD 75k.

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global has been valued at nearly USD 90 bn after a Nasdaq Private Market auction that ended last Thursday put shares at USD 350 apiece, sources from the auction told Bloomberg. That anchors investor expectations as Coinbase prepares to go public on the Nasdaq in later this month.

You should really check in with your IT department — that Microsoft hack is getting worse. New reports suggest the cyberattacks on Microsoft’s Exchange Server are escalating into a global “free-for-all” as a flood of attacks from groups unrelated to China’s Hafnium rush to take advantage of the vulnerabilities, the Financial Times reports. After Microsoft made the vulnerabilities public, a third, even bigger wave of attacks began as criminal groups jumped to exploit the flaws, a cybersecurity expert told the salmon-colored paper. While initial reports across various publications estimated roughly 30-60k cases, the FT suggests the number could be as high as 250k.

The European Banking Authority was the first major institution to confirm it was targeted in the attack. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency ramped up its warnings last night, urging all organizations to review its guidance on the international exploit.

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-

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Vox Cinemas is screening a re-release of the 2002 film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that has been remastered for 4K and IMAX screens. Director Peter Jackson’s 4K editions of the trilogy rolled out on Blu-ray in December, sporting visual changes that the director said would allow the 20-year-old films to look as if they were shot much more recently. The film follows Frodo and Sam’s journey to Mordor to make a stand against Sauron's new ally, Saruman, and his hordes of Isengard. The Two Towers is the second film in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and was an enormous box-office success, making over USD 936 mn worldwide in its initial 2002 release and winning the middle-Earth adaptation two Academy Awards.

The UEFA Champions League is back up and running: Juventus will go up against Porto and Dortmund will face off against Sevilla, with both matches at 10pm today. Meanwhile, in the Egyptian Premier League, Al Ittihad is playing against Ghazl El Mahalla at 7pm.

????EAT THIS TONIGHT-

This heat wave makes it the perfect time to get reacquainted with ice cream: Taiyaki brings Japanese-style soft serve to New Cairo in a detailed fish-shaped cone that’s more of a waffle if you ask us. Each cone is made to order and comes hot and fresh, with the option of an inner filling of Lotus, nutella, raspberries, and more. We had their signature Lotus Taiyaki and loved it. Pro tip: The fish tail has most of the filling and is the best part — and make sure you have tissues on hand. Check out their Instagram page @taiyakiegypt. Opening in Alexandria “soon.”

???? OUT AND ABOUT-

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Singer Rowan Maher is performing tunes from Egyptian movies at The Room Art Space in New Cairo tonight at 9pm.

Cairo Jazz Club in Agouza is promising a “night of ‘80s post-punk and new wave gems” featuring the Love Cats and Purplpitch today at 9pm.

The Darkroom Cairo is an amazing place to check out if you haven’t already. The Downtown Cairo venue celebrates classic film photography by holding workshops on how to shoot using silver-based stock and then develop in a darkroom. Also on offer: photography walks. The Darkroom also sells the equipment and film needed to get you started. Excited yet? The Darkroom has a large-format demo session on Thursday at 3pm at which participants will be introduced to the process of using 4×5 film (that’s 4 inches by 5 inches) in the studio to shoot, then move to the lab to develop and print.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Put yourself in the mind of an AI robot: Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro has released his first book since his Nobel Prize win in 2017, with Klara and the Sun. The novel follows Klara, an Artificial Friend or a synthetic girl built as a companion to a child. However, she hasn’t been bought yet and from her place in the store, she spends her days observing people who come in to browse or pass by in the street. Ishiguro uses AI to reflect on what it is to be human by using Klara’s unbiased and moldable intellectual palate to display the act of growing up and growing more closed off.

Vulture is out with a book review, while Wired interviewed Ishiguro about the future of AI and his experience writing the piece.

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???? TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Summer, are you just popping in? Our favorite weather app is forecasting daytime highs of 35°C and nighttime lows 15°C tomorrow. The weather will get gradually cooler from there, going back to the mid-20s by Thursday and falling further over the weekend, according to the Egyptian Meteorological Authority (pdf).

Cheiron, Cairn to acquire Shell assets in a transaction worth up to USD 926 mn: Shell has agreed to sell its assets in the Western Desert to our friends at Egypt’s Cheiron Petroleum Corporation and UK-listed Cairn Energy for up to USD 926 mn, the Dutch energy giant said in a statement this morning.

In detail: The acquisition will see the two companies pay USD 646 mn for Shell’s 13 onshore concessions and its stake in Badr El-Din Petroleum (Bapetco) — a joint venture company shared with the state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation. Cheiron and Cairn will split the purchase, paying USD 323 mn each for a 50% interest in the portfolio, the buyers said in separate statements (here and here). A further USD 280 mn (split between the two buyers) could be paid out between 2021 and 2024, depending on oil prices and exploration efforts.

In practice: The acquisition will hand the companies proven and probable reserves amounting to some 113 mn barrels. Cheiron will receive assets producing almost 40k barrels of oil equivalent per day on a working interest basis, while Cairn will add between 33-38k boe/d of production to its portfolio.

Who will do what? Cheiron will operate the production and development concessions, while Cairn will be responsible for three of the exploration licenses. Bapetco will continue to manage the field activities.

What they said: Cairn CEO Simon Thomson called the acquisition an “important step” to diversifying its portfolio, while Cheiron boss David Thomas said the partnership will generate “material value” to the concessions.

Cairn is trading the UK for Egypt: Cairn also announced today that it is selling its stakes in its North Sea Catcher and Kraken fields to Waldorf Production for USD 460 mn, saying it wanted to offload them before production begins declining.

Who is funding the transaction? The acquisition will be part-funded by a syndicate of nine international banks and lenders, with both companies putting up cash to finance the remainder.

The acquisition isn’t done yet: The sale is subject to regulatory approval, which Cheiron said should be completed in the second half of 2021.

Advisors: Rothschild & Co and Gaffney Cline & Associates acted as advisors on the acquisition.

Background: The Dutch oil giant has been wanting to offload its Western Desert assets since 2019, and was originally looking to sell them for as much as USD 1 bn. A consortium of Cheiron, Cairn Energy and Pharos Energy had moved to a second round of bidding last April, before Pharos left the talks due to the collapse in oil prices. Egypt’s East Gas was also invited to the next round of bidding.

IN OTHER M&A NEWS-

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) appointed Cl Capital as its financial adviser for the sale of ADCB’s 51.54% stake in Alexandria Medical Services, Alexandria Medical said in a bourse filing (pdf) earlier today. The statement also confirmed that ADCB is looking to sell its entire stake in Alex Medical. ADCB became Alex Medical’s majority shareholder following the collapse of BR Shetty’s UAE-based NMC Healthcare on allegations of fraud. Alexandria Medical Services has been the target of a bidding war by multiple firms. There’s Saudi’s Tawasol Holdings, which looks like it wants to team up with Speed Medical to acquire 100% of the company. Alex Medical had received a competing offer from a consortium of Mabaret Al Asafra Hospitals and investment firm Tana Africa Capital back in January.

Egyptian private equity veteran Hossam Abou Moussa (LinkedIn) has joined London-based financial services PE outfit Apis as a partner, the company said in a statement (pdf) that also quotes Actis partner Rick Philips. Abou Moussa joins after a 15-year run at Actis, where he has been a partner leading a team of professionals who invest in financial services in Egypt and across emerging markets. He began his career at CIIC prior to its merger with EFG Hermes, where got his start in private equity before joining Actis in 2006.

Apis is a financial services specialist with more than USD 1 bn invested in 25 companies and a focus on environmental, social, governance and impact investing across developed and emerging markets. The firm closed its USD 550 mn Apis Partners II fund on the eve of the covid-19 pandemic with a who’s who of limited partners including global banks, insurance companies, development financial institutions, fund of funds, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and family offices from the U.S., Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Asia.

Apis’ most recent investment includes an undisclosed stake in South African digital player TymeBank, where Apis will also join the board.

Abou Moussa will take with him two other Actis professionals and will “continue to provide advice on certain Actis financial services investments in existing portfolios” under an agreement with Actis, the statement said.

The move comes as Actis focuses its strategy on hard assets including real estate, power and infrastructure. “The partnership [with Apis] delivers positive outcomes for our investors by retaining the knowledge, experience and relationships of the team in an advisory capacity for a number of our financial services investments. We are very pleased to be working with Apis, who we identified as the optimal partner to collaborate with us on our financial services investments,” said Actis partner Rick Phillips.

Actis and Abou Moussa have a long track record in Egypt. The firm has stakes and board representation on leading payments firm Fawry, top consumer healthcare player IDH (the parent company of Al Borg and Al Mokhtabar labs), and hospitals group Cleopatra (the latter alongside RMBV). Its previous investments here include CIB and Edita. It also previously built leading payments business EMP, which had a significant operation in Egypt, before exiting it to Network International.

*** WE’LL HAVE MORE ON THE TRANSACTION in an exclusive sit-down with Abou Moussa in tomorrow’s edition of EnterpriseAM.

OUR ANALYST OF THE WEEK- Abanob Magdy, associate vice president at Beltone Financial.

My name is Abanob Magdy and I’ve been at Beltone Financial for the past two years. I started my career at Deloitte as a financial auditor and while it helped me enter the financial field, I wasn’t a big fan of auditing itself. So I decided to do my CFA and I moved to AlexBank which was like being at a financial academy. I learned so much, especially since the bank is a subsidiary of Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo Group and most departments are led by their Italian counterparts. After four years at AlexBank, I decided to move into investment banking and transferred to Prime Holding for a few months before landing my position at Beltone.

I currently cover banking and NBFS companies in Egypt and Saudi, but the company has plans to expand into GCC and North Africa in the future.

The best part of my job is seeing how one’s call yields results. It takes time to be able to hone in on that skill and make effective calls, but once you do, there’s a huge satisfaction in it.

The worst part of my job is that you always have to be up to date. This also holds true during vacation time. I had to work at a point during my honeymoon and my wife was not happy [laughs]. She knows me well though so she gave me a “bera7tak” and it passed. Work-life balance doesn’t always come easy, but when I can, I try to achieve it by being 100% present in the situation I’m in whether it’s in my personal life or at work.

My theory of investing is inspired by Warren Buffet. The most important factor to look at in a company you’re thinking of investing in is whether it has a durable competitive advantage which will help it maneuver through tough circumstances. However, you also have to get the timing right. I’m a big fan of Buffet’s quote, “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful,” which urges investors to buy stocks when there’s a selloff and sell stocks when there’s a hype in the market.

I’m also an advocate for long-term investing. Waiting out a company’s market cycle allows you to harvest the real value when it's recognized.

I think the Export Development Bank of Egypt is an undiscovered gem. The EGX30-listed company is on the rise and has great potential in the Egyptian market.

All things considered, 2020 was not a bad year for the Egyptian economy. Businesses managed to hold themselves somewhat upright and even the volatility in the stock market was more of a representation of who was participating in trading as opposed to trouble in the economy. I think 2021 will see this upwards trajectory continue, fueled by an evident recovery, successful stimulus programs, and a solid banking sector.

Less travel has made work harder and less efficient. Online work is maybe 60% as effective as face-to-face interaction. I also think roadshows won’t be back for another year and a half at least and with less volume. Many companies are happy with the cost-saving alternatives introduced during the pandemic and are unlikely to go back to travelling.

Most of my free time is spent reading. The last great thing I read was The Idiot by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Even though it was written in the 1860s, I still feel that I can meet all the characters he described in the novel in my everyday life and feel the same way he felt. He’s quite timeless in that way. Of course, I also enjoyed The New Buffettology which looks at the techniques Warren Buffet used to invest.

I thoroughly enjoyed the TV series Suits. My favorite character was Harvey Specter, but I also felt that Louis Litt was a very relatable character. When I work I like to listen to classical operas such as Mozart.

Other than that, I love travelling with my friends. It doesn’t matter what the destination is, but the company you have and the experiences you leave with.

I’m not a very organized person [laughs]. I try to be when I have to, using to-do lists and the sort, but overall I just like everything to flow naturally and not have certain times to think or do things. If I’m working on a research note for example, I don’t always have a clear idea of where it’s going to go. As I write, my scattered thoughts organize themselves and I’m not afraid of adding last minute ideas. I feel that not being rigid makes me more creative.

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The EGX30 fell 1.1% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 1.2 bn (18.7% below the 90-day average). Regional investors were net buyers. The index is up 4.5% YTD.

In the green: MM Group (+3.0%), EDBE (+1.7%) and Heliopolis Housing (+1.6%).

In the red: Abu Qir Fertilizers (-5.1%), Ezz Steel (-2.9%) and Cleopatra (-2.8%).

Is the SPAC party coming to an end? Blank-check companies have jumped the shark: They’re the topic of rap songs (watch, runtime: 3:09), they’re getting featured in Twitter memes, and promoters are getting bored to a point that one of them named their vehicle “Just Another Acquisition Corp.” Elsewhere, a SPAC is investing in a business that promises people it’ll develop a flying taxi. But it seems like the punch bowl may be finally running dry as the bond selloff has a knock on effect on SPACs.

Boom time: Growth in SPACs — publicly traded shells that promise to merge with actual businesses later down the line — has been nothing short of exponential. Only 59 listed in 2019, raising USD 13.6 bn. In 2020, this almost quadrupled to hit 226, netting a stunning USD 83 bn. And only three months into 2021, 226 SPACs have raised an astonishing USD 73 bn. That, Heather Perlberg writes in an article for Bloomberg Wealth, accounts for more than 70% of the IPO market. All in all, 474 SPACs have made USD 156 bn over the past 15 months, drawing in everyone from Bill Ackman and Paul Ryan to Shaquille O’Neal and Colin Kaepernick. “Nowadays everyone who’s anyone seems to be doing one,” Perlberg writes.

Is the party over? With unease in the US bond market rippling through into stocks, investors have lost their appetite for the highly-speculative risk-on assets offered up by the SPAC aficionados. The recently-launched IPOX SPAC index is down 20% from its peak in February, putting the market in bear territory, Chris Bryant writes in an op-ed for Bloomberg. Many SPACs are no longer trading at a premium, and are now valued below their USD 10 IPO price, a more normal state of affairs, Bryant writes.

Not necessarily: SPACs haven’t yet run into problems raising capital, despite prices falling through the floor, Bryant says. However, lower prices will make it harder for them to finalize acquisitions, and lower subscription rates could raise eyebrows among the hedge fund benefactors that have been so eager to ride the wave. And SPACs could be first on the chopping block when the market rally does come to an end. “Whatever stops this bull market will lay its first sights on SPACs,” said Steven Siesser, a partner with law firm Lowenstein Sandler. “They'll be the first casualty.”

The SEC has been sounding the alarm for months, after having cautioned in September about potential trouble down the road. The regulator has put out a guidance to outline potential conflicts and an exact figure of how much so-called SPAC sponsors can make. Those sponsors usually get paid a 20% bounty known as the “promote,” as well as other benefits which keeps them safe while public investors are out in the cold.

Check out our explainer on SPACS here.

Electric vehicles are vital to cut emissions — but they, too, come at an environmental cost: The race to find the world’s lithium deposits — an important component of rechargeable batteries for electric cars — is heating up, as European and US policymakers place greater emphasis on reducing carbon emissions and introduce incentives to transition to electric vehicles. But the production of this so-called “white oil” is not without an environmental impact, the Guardian’s Oliver Balch shows in this podcast (listen, runtime: 32:06).

Desertifying the Atacama: In Chile, where lithium is found in brine, companies pump saltwater from beneath the earth’s surface and leave it to evaporate in the desert sun. An area in the country’s northern Atacama Desert known as the “lithium triangle” is thought by some to house half of the world’s reserves, and is being targeted by companies for large-scale mining. Locals and environmentalists are concerned that the process will end up contaminating fresh groundwater reserves that lie above the brine deposits, accelerating the region’s desertification and eradicating flora and fauna.

Over in Europe, the concerns are different. In Portugal, which is positioning itself as the continent’s lithium hub, the mineral is found in rock and clay deposits and must be mined from the hillsides. This has been met with backlash from local communities who aren’t eager to see their countryside cratered.

Industry insiders argue the price is worth it if it means cutting carbon emissions: In an investor presentation (pdf) Savannah Resources, a company preparing to open a mine in Portugal, says that its initial 11-year operations will prevent a 100 mn tonnes of CO2 from being emitted, thanks to the batteries produced from its lithium. It’s a “no-brainer” if its mines help reduce transport emissions and thus reduce the threat of climate change, the company’s CEO said.

Could lithium recycling provide a solution? Analysts forecast that the global lithium recycling industry will grow c. 12x to more than USD 18 bn by 2030. Although the mineral’s volatile nature makes access tricky, a number of companies are racing to develop technologies to make it easier.

March: Potential visit to Cairo by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

9-11 March (Tuesday-Thursday): EduGate 2021 – Enter The Future conference, Kempinski Royal Maxim Hotel, Cairo, Egypt.

11 March (Thursday): AmCham event featuring Oil Minister Tarek El Molla.

11-12 March (Thursday-Friday): Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok will arrive for a two-day visit to follow up on GERD talks.

11-13 March (Thursday-Saturday): Cairo Fashion & Tex trade show, Cairo International Convention Centre, Cairo, Egypt

11-14 March (Thursday-Sunday): First edition of Afaq Real Estate Expo, Tolip El Galaa Hotel, Cairo, Egypt.

11-15 March (Thursday – Monday): Al Bazaar fair for handicrafts and house decors, Cairo International Conference Centre, Cairo, Egypt.

11-20 March (Thursday-Saturday): Photopia’s Cairo Photo Week 2021 will take place with this year’s theme being Depth OFF Field.

13-14 March (Saturday-Sunday): The Marketers League Conference will take place at Kundalini Grand Pyramids Hotel in Giza. This year’s theme is Beyond the Pandemic.

15 March (Monday): AmCham event featuring life coach Arfeen Khan.

16 March (Tuesday): AmCham webinar featuring business tech expert Patrick Schwerdtfeger.

18 March (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

23 March (Tuesday): The second edition of the Egypt Retail Summit takes place at the Nile Ritz Carlton hotel.

23 March (Tuesday): The British-Egyptian Business Association (BEBA) virtual conference on sustainable manufacturing in Africa.

25-27 March (Thursday-Saturday): The Real Gate real estate exhibition, Egyptian International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

29-30 March (Monday-Tuesday): Arab Federation of Exchanges Annual Conference 2021.

31 March (Wednesday): Deadline to visit the moroor and get an RFID sticker affixed to your car’s windshield — or run afoul of the Traffic Police.

31 March (Wednesday): Income tax deadline for individuals. Real estate tax deadline.

1-3 April (Thursday-Saturday): HVAC-R Egypt Expo.

8-10 April (Thursday-Saturday): The TriFactory’s Endurance Festival at Somabay.

13 April (Monday): First day of Ramadan (TBC).

25 April (Sunday): Sinai Liberation Day.

29 April (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Sinai Liberation Day (TBC),

29 April (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

1 May (Saturday): Labor Day (national holiday).

2 May (Sunday): Easter Sunday.

3 May (Monday): Sham El Nessim.

13-15 May (Thursday-Saturday): Eid El Fitr (TBC).

25-28 May (Tuesday-Friday): The World Economic Forum annual meeting, Singapore.

1 June (Tuesday): The IMF will conduct a second review of targets set under the USD 5.2 bn standby loan approved in June 2020 (proposed date).

7 June-9 June (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Petroleum Show, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo, Egypt.

17 June (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

24 June (Thursday): End of the 2020-2021 academic year (public schools).

26-29 June (Saturday-Tuesday): The Big 5 Construct Egypt, Cairo International Convention Center, Cairo, Egypt.

30 June (Wednesday): 30 June Revolution Day.

1 July: (Thursday): National holiday in observance of 30 June Revolution.

30 June- 15 July: National Book Fair.

1 July (Thursday): Large taxpayers that have not yet signed on on to the e-invoicing platform will suffer a host of penalties, including removal from large taxpayer classification, losing access to government services and business, and losing subsidies.

19 July (Monday): Arafat Day (national holiday).

20-23 July (Tuesday-Friday): Eid Al Adha (national holiday)

23 July (Friday): Revolution Day (national holiday).

5 August (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

9 August (Monday): Islamic New Year.

12 August (Thursday): National holiday in observance of the Islamic New Year.

16 September (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

30 September-2 October (Thursday-Saturday): Egypt Projects 2021 expo, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

1 October (Friday): Expo 2020 Dubai opens.

6 October (Wednesday): Armed Forces Day.

7 October (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Armed Forces Day.

18 October (Monday): Prophet’s Birthday.

21 October (Thursday): National holiday in observance of the Prophet’s Birthday.

28 October (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

1-12 November (Monday-Friday): 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Glasgow, United Kingdom.

13-17 December: United Nations Convention against Corruption, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

16 December (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

27 June – 3 July 2022 (Monday-Sunday): World University Squash Championships, New Giza.

Note to readers: Some national holidays may appear twice above. Since 2020, Egypt has observed most mid-week holidays on Thursdays regardless of the day on which they fall and may also move those days to Sundays. We distinguish below between the actual holiday and its observance.