A QUICK NOTE TO OUR AMAZING READERS

We have a slightly shorter-than-usual Weekend Edition today as we invested extra time this week in a special edition that will appear next week for the RiseUp summit in Cairo. We’re exceptionally excited to be attending — and to have had the chance to talk to some unique figures in tech over the past couple of weeks.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a tech type or a member of the mainstream business community looking for new ideas and new investment targets, RiseUp is something you don’t want to miss. The gathering takes place next Saturday and Sunday (12-13 December) on the Greek Campus. Check out their website and give some thought to registering — we hope to see you there.

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi called as many as 28 business leaders in for a chat, according to a readout from Ittihadiya. El Sisi said the state is committed to “creating an environment conducive to investment.” The president, “acknowledged the significant role of the private sector in Egypt, as a major partner in economic development. He noted its valuable contribution to the implementation of national mega projects and creation of jobs. He affirmed that state authorities respect private proprietorship and that the constitution and law guarantee individuals and private businesses their full rights.” Pointing out that the the government has “introduced legislative amendments, launched national projects and overcome energy shortages for factories,” the president went on to invite the private sector to capture the “opportunities offered by national products.” Interestingly, El Sisi also gave a nod to the Administrative Control Authority, saying it was working to address investor complaints.

Strongest hint yet we’re going to see an “automotive directive” for assemblers and new cement production licenses: The president noted “the government’s interest in expanding industries such as automotive and cement in the coming period to reduce exports and meet local market needs.”

Critically for the community: The statement does not identify who attended as part of the “group of Egyptian businessmen and investors, who represent various economic sectors.” Confirmed as having been in the room: Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, CBE Governor Tarek Amer, as well as the ministers of investment, trade and industry, tourism, housing and urban communities, agriculture and land reclamation. The head of the Administrative Control Authority also attended. Among those Al-Mal reports were present: Oriental Weavers’ Mohamed Farid Khamis and Amer Group’s Mansour Amer. The Egyptian Federation of Industries’ Mohamed El Sewedy gave a quick overview of the discussion. We’ll have more on this front on Sunday.

Despite flooding the market with USD 1 bn to start clearing an import backlog last month, among other exceptional moves, foreign reserves at the Central Bank of Egypt were flat at the end of November at USD 16.423 bn against USD 16.416 bn the month before, according to a flash on the CBE’s homepage that gave no further information.

The EGP / USD rate was unchanged yesterday at the CBE’s final currency auction of the week, with USD 39.3 mn selling at EGP 7.7301 to the USD.

Amid rising complaints of police torture, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi made a surprise visit to the national police academy in Cairo, touring the facilities and taking in morning PT before having a sit-down with senior officers and students. While much of the talk focused on the role of the police service in fighting terror, El Sisi specifically “asserted that policemen will remain committed to the values of human rights and will resist any attempts to undermine them,” according to a statement from Ittihadiya. He dwelled on the topic again later in the discussion, calling on members of the force not to tolerate bad apples and emphasizing that those who break the law “will be held accountable.”

Dave McClure’s 500 Startups announced the launch of a USD 30 mn MENA VC fund on Thursday, Bloomberg reports. “The popular image of what’s going on in the Middle East is either Isis or sheikhs with a bunch of oil, but the reality is there are mns of people who aren’t rich or poor,” McClure is quoted as saying. “Hasan Haider, a former investment banker, serves as venture partner for the new 500 Startups fund in the Middle East and North Africa. He said the fund, which has so far gotten investor commitments for half of the USD 30 mn goal, will back as many as 300 companies. Haider’s ideal investment is a mobile and social media startup, with simple business models that aren’t costly to build. He also sees opportunities in e-commerce,” Bloomberg reported. McClure is scheduled to speak at RiseUp Summit, scheduled to take place from 12-13 December (next Saturday and Sunday) at the Greek Campus.

Don’t expect oil prices to rise when OPEC meets later today: Iran and Russia appear to have torpedoed “a surprise proposal [to lift prices] that appeared to have been floated by Saudi Arabia,” Reuters says, citing a report in an industry publication. “Saudi Arabia has long insisted it would cut production only if fellow OPEC members and non-OPEC countries joined in. The report quoted a senior OPEC delegate as saying the Saudis would agree to cuts if Iraq freezes production rises and Iran and non-members such as Russia, Mexico, Oman and Kazakhstan contribute. But Russia and OPEC members Iran and Iraq quickly rejected the idea. OPEC and non-OPEC producers have not cooperated to tackle low oil prices since they joined forces 15 years ago to help the market recover from the 1998 financial crisis.”

SPEED ROUND, THE WEEKEND EDITION

Emerging markets are slowing down, not melting down. That’s one of 10 predictions Goldman Sachs makes in its new 2016 Global Outlook, summarized this year in a quick, text-light and easy to scroll website. On the EM outlook, GS says, “Emerging markets are better positioned than in previous crises to weather slower growth. Countries with currencies pegged to the USD are most at risk of difficult adjustment. Reserve buffers and less reliance on hard currency debt will help EMs manage rebalancing.” Overall, Goldman expects developed markets to grow 2.0% in 2016 — on par with this year — while EM will tick up to 4.9% from 4.4%.

Startup investors are being taken to school by Fidelity as we gear-up for the unicorn apocalypse. The mutual fund giant has taken stakes in multiple high-profile startups and — gasp — marked them to market. Fortune’s Dan Pimack has largely owned the story, and it’s almost cute to hear the near-puzzlement in his writing when Fidelity marked up shares of Dropbox and Snapchat in late November that it had marked down just a few weeks before. That’s right, kids: The value of a security does not necessarily follow the hockey-stick shaped “up and to the right” — even when it is a so-called “unicorn.” See how it’s unfolded in the pages of Fortune magazine:

• Another Sign of Trouble with the ‘Unicorns’
• Fidelity Marks Down Even More Popular Tech Startups
• Snapchat Isn’t the Only Startup in Fidelity’s Crosshairs
• Unicorn Volatility: Fidelity Marks Up Shares of Dropbox and Snapchat

Want to dig deeper into the so-called ‘unicorn club’? The Wall Street Journal has a constantly updated list / infographic accessible even to non-subscribers

In the same vein: We enjoyed being the last ones on the internet to get around to reading David Heinemeier Hansson’s Reconsider, his typically doctrinaire (but very much worth reading) ode to a life spent building what he would call a lifestyle business, but which a generation ago would have just been referred to as “a ridiculously profitable mid-sized company.” On unicorns: “In this atmosphere, the term startup has been narrowed to describe the pursuit of total business domination. It’s turned into an obsession with unicorns and the properties of their ‘success.’ A whole generation of people working with and for the internet enthralled by the prospect of being transformed into a mythical creature. But who can blame them? This set of fairytale ideals are being reinforced at every turn.” The guy has a point of view and a charmingly Danish way of expressing it. His personal website here has onward links to his Twitter feed, company blog, you name it.

“Fake ads mocking corporate sponsors of the COP21 climate talks pop up in Paris,” reports Canada’s CBC. We think the spots range from ‘hilarious’ to ‘trying too hard.’ The best of them are in the best tradition of AdBusters (when they still had a sense of humor). Corporate chieftains are offended. Take a gander and judge for yourselves.

Use your best Crocodile Dundee voice and read this aloud: “That’s not inflation This is inflation.” In its annual Christmas Price Index, PNC reports that the cost of buying the “12 Days of Christmas“ has risen exactly 0.6% to USD 34,131. For complete Christmasgeeks, that’s after adjusting the trailing prices of “turtle doves and swans after realizing the prices quoted by vendors didn’t reflect the birds’ overall value on the open market over the years.” CNBC and Business Insider have more.
Most oil exporters have enough buffers in their sovereign wealth funds to withstand a temporary drop in oil prices, but if the low price environment persists, there would be concerns surrounding the impact on the global asset markets as well as the oil exporting countries’ finances. It will depend on whether oil importers have a lower marginal propensity to save than oil exporters, a team of IMF economists say. “The fall in oil prices tends to transfer wealth from oil exporters to high-saving emerging Asian countries … From a global perspective, this implies lower global saving and higher interest rates… Sovereign wealth funds’ market operations will also depend on how much their governments opt to borrow or draw on their fiscal buffers, including those kept with sovereign wealth funds.” In the medium term, the relationship between governments in oil-exporting countries and their sovereign wealth funds is likely to be tested as government will be bringing in less revenue and drawing out more. Calling on the oil exporting countries to tighten their belts, the economists say “only the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait’s fiscal buffers will last for over 25 years on current fiscal plans and oil price projections… Bahrain and Yemen will exhaust them in the next two years, while most other countries will run out of buffers in four to seven years.”

Why am I shelling out more than EGP 1,200 for a MacBook charger? Sure, the USD / EGP rate and the de rigeur domestic price gouging are factors. But fundamentally: It’s an incredibly complicated little piece of kit. Check out: MacBook charger teardown: The surprising complexity inside Apple’s power adapter.

Doping in sport is nearly as old as sport itself, with some origins tracing back to the ancient Greek, but why is it now so hard to catch? One of the reasons is leeway given by the World Anti-Doping Agency to allow for the small segment of the population who have the natural genetic variation. This gives a threshold that doping athletes can aim for without being detected, The Economist explains.

The new Pirelli calendar is infinitely tamer than usual — despite being shot by Annie Leibovitz — and our fondness for the unclothed female form notwithstanding, we have to admit: It’s even better than usual for the incredibly strong and cool women it features (with the obvious exception of Yoko Ono). The nearly entirely unclothed comedian and actor Amy Schumer is one of just two subjects to appear in a state of undress. The brilliant Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy (who we profiled in our first Weekend Editions) makes an appearance, as does Ariel Investments’ Mellody Hobson. You can check out Pirelli’s page on the calendar here (with behind-the-scenes photos), or get some background from NPR or Vanity Fair.

And speaking of the unclothed form: Pamela Anderson will be the cover model for the final issue of a rabbit-ear magazine to include the unclothed female form, Fortune reports. The magazine in question will continue to publish, but any / all models will be wearing garments. (We’d be more specific, but the algorithms would not deliver us this morning if we used those words.)

The newest horizon in pharmaceuticals may be anti-aging, and a drug called metformin will be tested in human trials in the U.S. as an anti-aging pill for the first time next year. Originally a popular diabetes treatment, researchers discovered that metformin is also effective at extending lifespan in test animals and, theoretically, in humans. Scientists think that the drug augments lifespan by increasing the number of oxygen molecules released in a cell, which can make it stronger and more long-lived. If the drug tests successfully as an anti-aging pharmaceutical, it has potential to help humans live to the age of 120 or longer, writes Sarah Knapton for the Telegraph. The new clinical trial called Targeting Aging with Metformin, or TAME, is scheduled to begin in the US next winter. Scientists from a range of institutions are currently raising funds and recruiting 3,000 70 to 80 year olds who have, or are risk of, cancer, heart disease and dementia.

A Canadian has pleaded guilty to smuggling after being caught with 51 turtles in his pants, Macleans magazine reports — and oddly enough, he’s neither Egyptian nor of Egyptian ancestry.

Can you imagine a world without growth? The New York Times’ Eduardo Porter takes down increasingly common arguments on the left of the political spectrum for “no growth” or “de-growth” noting that “Humanity made do with little or no economic growth for thousands of years. In Byzantium and Egypt, income per capita at the end of the first millennium was lower than at the dawn of the Christian Era. Much of Europe experienced no growth at all in the 500 years that preceded the Industrial Revolution. In India, real incomes per person shrank continuously from the early 17th through the late 19th century. … Could civilization, as we know it, survive such an experience again? The answer, simply, is no. … In a world economy that does not grow, the powerless and vulnerable are the most likely to lose. Imagine ‘Blade Runner,’ ‘Mad Max’ and ‘The Hunger Games’ brought to real life.”

SPOTLIGHT ON what the devil is Goldman Sachs going on about?

As we reported yesterday, Goldman Sachs has identified seven themes it thinks will shape the future — and that investors will want to get into now, before they change the economy in ways we cannot presently imagine. We’re intrigued, and we’ll be digging further into them over the coming seven issues. To recap, the list included:

• “The blockchain could disrupt everything.”
• “Space is once again the new frontier.”
• “College may not be worth it.”
• “Gen-Z matters more than millennials.”
• “There will be another Flash Crash.”
• “Lithium is the new gasoline.
• “The cloud can help cure cancer.”

Today: Space is once again the new frontier

Increased growth for aerospace and defense (A&D) companies against a backdrop of the increasing commercialization of space: The Goldman report projects investment opportunities for the US A&D industry growing from USD 50 bn in 2015 to USD 60 bn in 2016, at a CAGR of 9% from 2014-2016, according to the WSJ.

In global terms, US non-profit Space Foundation puts the global space economy at USD 330 bn in 2014, growing 9% from the previous year, noting that “The biggest growth in 2014 occurred in the commercial infrastructure and support industries sector, which also constitutes more than a third of overall global space revenues” (pdf).

The commercialization of space was given a significant boost in September 2014, when NASA announced it had selected Boeing and SpaceX to sign its first Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts (a USD 4.2 bn contract for Boeing and USD 2.6 bn for SpaceX) to transport US astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) using private spacecraft with a target date of 2017.

The first commercial space activity was the launch of Telstar 1, operated by AT&T, in 1962, which was able to transmit not only the first live transatlantic television broadcast, but also phone calls, faxes and data. More on Telstar’s introduction to the global public may be found in this 1962 edition of National Geographic (pdf).

The next significant push the space industry received wasn’t until the US Commercial Space Act of 1998, which paved the way for the aforementioned commercial crew contracts. NASA has a good backgrounder on the major phases of the program and contracts signed to date.

Aside from American efforts, the Russians were the first to provide commercial space tourism, also known as personal spaceflight. The private US-based venture Space Adventures has thus far been the only company to facilitate seven personal spaceflights to the ISS using the Russian Soyuz spacecraft from 2001-2009, with each flight costing those willing to pay anywhere from USD 20 mn and above. After suspending such personal spaceflights due to a lack of space onboard the ISS, Space Adventures is set to send up Japanese ad executive Satoshi Takamatsu “in the next 2-4 years,” according to a press release by the company.

The Atlantic also highlighted space commercialization as one of its “Bold Bets” as discussed in a panel last October. The moderator, the Atlantic’s Washington Editor Steve Clemons is a little insufferable but the discussion itself is interesting nonetheless. (Watch, running time: 35:04)

WATCH THIS

Intelligence Squared Debate: Central banks can print prosperity: Debate forum Intelligence Squared held a panel debate last month on the efficacy of quantitative easing. Speaking for the motion was founder and executive chairman of Capital Economics Roger Bootle and former chief economist of the IMF Simon Johnson. Speaking against the motion was founding partner at Bain Capital and longtime Mitt Romney ally Edward Conard, and a former managing director at Morgan Stanley and former US Federal Reserve official Andrew Huszar. (Watch the debate, running time 1 hour, 38 minutes and or read the transcript (pdf), though the first page spoils the debate results)

LISTEN TO THIS

It might not be exactly like the one envisioned in Back to the Future, but someone invented a self-balancing hoverboard scooter that is going viral. NPR’s Planet Money noticed that it is not exactly clear who created the scooter that’s seen here being manned by a lazy person doing a “high-tech tawaf” in Mecca (watching time 02:28). It is the holiday season’s hottest toy, but comes with no identifiable logo, no main distributor, and not even an agreed upon name. The Planet Money team find pinpoint their search to the city of Shenzhen in China, where factories operate there in near total disregard to patents. (Run time 17:16)

SOMETHING THAT MADE US THINK

A brief history of the state’s failure to upgrade informal settlements: Yehia Shawkat is a bit of a hippie but one of the more promising researchers in urban development and social justice. Shawkat attempts to answer the question: “Is civil administration and planning in Egypt being run professionally according to research and analysis, or is it as ‘random’ as the housing it claims to improve?” He points out “in June 2014, the Ministry of State for Urban Renewal and Informal Settlements (MURIS) was unexpectedly created … In September 2015, with the recent cabinet reshuffle, MURIS was dissolved without explanation, and the ISDF transferred to the Ministry of Housing.”

…We do, however, take issue with two assertions he makes: The first being that 75% of all land tenure is insecure in Egypt, and secondly that the deregulated market is to blame for the lack of affordable housing. We would argue that while the specter of forced eviction has once again raised its head, and that while the majority of residents lack formal titling, this does not put their tenure in practical risk, although it does leave certain areas such as the Maspero Triangle vulnerable to eviction. Secondly, the market is not completely deregulated, but keeps rent control in place for some, helping to further distort the market. Arguments for keeping rent control in place lest low-income residents be priced out are nonsensical as informal settlements built outside the jurisdiction of the law are already a rampant ‘solution’ to the lack of housing capacity. The article however, and Shawkat’s research in general, are definitely worth a look. Read the original piece published in Al Shorouk in Arabic or the translation in Open Democracy.

HEALTH

We work unusual hours at Enterprise: Some of us are on the day shift, others work overnight. One lunatic wakes up at 3:30 “in the morning” to hit the keyboard, and another is essentially an insomniac. So if you’re anything like us, you’ve probably heard a few times in your life that you’re killing yourself if you don’t get at least six (or seven, or eight, or nine) hours of sleep a night. Enter the Wall Street Journal to make it that much more complicated: “Good sleep isn’t just about how long you sleep. Continuity may be equally important. Getting up in middle of the night multiple times to soothe a crying baby or go to the bathroom impacts your mood and cognitive abilities the next day, new research has found.” One study in the journal Sleep Medicine, the newspaper reports, “found that even one night of fragmented sleep negatively impacts mood, attention span and cognitive ability to the same degree as restricting sleep to four hours in a night.” Read in the WSJ (paywall). While we’re sorry to be sending you over there, Fox News has a solid summary if you’re not a subscriber to the Journal.

Still not getting a decent night’s rest? The Guardian writes about sleep restriction therapy, a newly popular means of treating insomnia — and encouraging people to get unbroken sleep. From the Guardian: “The basics of SRT are simple. First, pick a fixed getting-up time – let’s say 7am – and enforce it like a fascist. Second, over a week or two, work out how much sleep you really get per night, on average. Say five hours. Now the hard part: your job is to stay out of your bedroom, and awake, until five hours before your rising time – 2am. If five hours is all the sleep you get, five hours is all you’ll have. (Don’t go below 4.5h. As things improve, you’ll gradually extend time in bed.)”

PERSONAL TECH

If you’re toting around an iPhone 6s Plus, but wish you had a tiny handset to take to the gym / running / dinner in a purse, this is the rumor for you. MacRumors reports that “KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a research note corroborating rumors that Apple will release a new 4-inch iPhone next year, which he believes will resemble an upgraded iPhone 5s and launch in early 2016. … Kuo expects the new 4-inch iPhone to have an A9 chip manufactured by both TSMC and Samsung, 2.5D cover glass with curved edges like on the iPhone 6s, NFC for Apple Pay, metal casing with at least two to three color options, and identical camera specs to the iPhone 5s — an 8-MP rear-facing camera and 1.2-MP front shooter.”

AUTOMOTIVE

What do a Ferrari and a Buick have in common? They’re both getting Apple’s CarPlay in 2016, Business Insider tells us. (Curious? Check out last Friday’s Enterprise Weekend Edition for a rundown on CarPlay and Android Auto.)

THE WEEK’S MOST-CLICKED STORIES

The most-clicked stories in Enterprise in the past week were:

• The price of select automobiles on the domestic market — jpg table (Al-Borsa)
• Saudi Arabia: The wake-up call (Financial Times, paywall)
• How to Keep a Family Business Alive for Generations (Wall Street Journal)
• Ahmed Moussa assaulted by Ikhwan supporters on the streets of Paris (contains profanity in Arabic) (YouTube). There’s an additional video of a passerby messing with Moussa, who tries laughing it off but ends up sounding more incoherent than when he began the segment. (Watch in Arabic, running time: 48 seconds)
• 10 Top Cities Around The World To Launch Your Startup (Forbes)
• The notorious ‘attic’ penthouse in New York’s Plaza Hotel is on the market again for USD 50 mn (Business Insider)

ON YOUR WAY OUT

After shunning the idea for a year, RWE AG surprised markets on Tuesday by saying it would bundle its renewable energy, power-grid and retail businesses into a new company, and float at least 10% of it in an initial public offering at the end of 2016. Retaining its conventional power-generation activities, including nuclear operations. “Now we are taking the next logical step in our transformation process,” Chief Executive Peter Terium said. This mimics peer E.ON, which is close to spinning off its traditional power generation into a new company, Uniper, writes Wall Street Journal’s Helen Thomas. The idea is to separate old beleaguered assets weighed down by commodities prices and liabilities related to nuclear decommissioning from more stable, growth areas. As with E.ON, which under political pressure was forced to retain its nuclear liabilities, RWE’s restructuring doesn’t look straightforward or address all concerns, but it should ward off some worst-case scenarios that have dogged the stock.

Gambia became the latest country to ban FGM late last month. It is still unclear when legislation will be drafted to enforce the ban, but President Yahya Jammeh’s announcement, as the Independent puts it, “is particularly significant as he claimed Islam — the majority religion in Gambia — does not require FGM.” Egypt banned FGM in 2008, UNFPA notes, with the parliament at the time adding articles to the penal code establishing a minimum custodial sentence of three months and a maximum of two years or a penalty of EGP 1,000 – 5,000. However, given the prevalence of the horrific practice and the size of the population, Egypt still has the largest number of females who have undergone FGM globally, with one in four of the estimated 125 mn who underwent it residing there. Albeit on a decline, the practice still persists in Egypt, particularly in rural areas and as CNN’s Nick Thompson writes, the horrific practice usually starts with the beginning of the summer season. And as if anyone needed a reminder, UN officials repeatedly say that “FGM has no medical benefits and can cause lifelong physical and emotional trauma for the women forced to undergo the procedure.”