Home-made Sinovac to hit clinics across the country within two weeks

Happy Thursday, readers — It appears we’ve reached the pre-Eid news slowdown a week early. With a grand total of one business story, we don’t think it’s an exaggeration to officially crown this issue the slowest of ‘21. Fear not though: You can always count on the GERD and covid to provide the headlines, even when the news cycle is at its slowest. Updates on both, below.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY-

The EGX will enter test mode later today when it stages the first of several mock closing auctions between 3-4:30 pm.

The aim? Moving away from its current method of calculating closing prices and adopting the auction model could improve accuracy, increase trading volumes, and raise foreign investment on the EGX. We spoke to EGX boss Mohamed Farid yesterday to get the low-down on the bourse’s proposals, which you can find in the news well, below.

Will they/won’t they at the UN: The UN Security Council could hold a meeting today to discuss the crisis over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Egypt and Sudan have both been busy in New York trying to gain the support of council members ahead of a vote on their draft resolution, which would put pressure on Ethiopia to stop filling the dam and re-enter negotiations. Both Egypt and Sudan said earlier this week that the vote would happen today, but there have also been suggestions that it could be postponed until next week. More on this, below.

THE BIG STORY INTERNATIONALLY- Yesterday’s assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise continues to dominate the front pages of the global press this morning. The interim prime minister has declared a two-week state of emergency which he said would help the government track down the killers. The story is getting the headline treatment everywhere from Reuters and the AP, to the NYT and Bloomberg.

Also worth knowing about this morning:

• Bill and Melinda Gates have a plan in case things go sour: The couple, which announced their divorce in May, have agreed that Bill will buy Melinda out of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation if they are unable to continue working together after two years. (CNN)
• Antitrust suit filed against Google: Dozens of US states yesterday filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, arguing that the company illegally abused its power over developers using its Play store. (Bloomberg | WSJ)

***CATCH UP QUICK with the top stories from yesterday’s edition of EnterprisePM:

• EFG Hermes made its first USD 200 mn close on its fourth Vortex Energy fund, including a USD 25 mn of conditional commitment.
• The Saudi German Hospital will build a new medical complex by 1Q2022, with a new 300-bed flagship hospital.
• Consumer finance providers will be exempted from VAT, after the Financial Regulatory Authority moved to give them the same tax treatment as other NBFS firms.

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MARKET WATCH- Moscow doesn’t want a repeat of March 2020: Russia is trying to get Saudi Arabia and the UAE back on the same page and seal an agreement to raise oil production, Reuters reports, citing several OPEC+ sources. A dispute between long-time Gulf allies went public last week as the two failed to agree terms on increasing the global oil supply, and potentially putting a lid on recent price increases which has sent Brent to its highest level since late 2018. But in a bid to hold OPEC+ together and prevent surging prices / a new oil price war, Russia is trying to use its diplomatic clout to bring Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to an accommodation.

Oil prices fell again yesterday: Brent finished the day down 1.5% at USD 73.39 per barrel, and has fallen 5.7% since peaking at almost USD 78/bbl on Tuesday.

No-one knows what’s happening: “The jury is still out” and “wildly uncertain” were the two choice quotes in Bloomberg’s market coverage yesterday.

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CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

Among the handful of dates to keep an eye on:

• Fuel pricing: We should hear by Saturday whether the government will raise, hold or cut fuel prices for the coming quarter.
• Inflation: Data for June will be released next week.

The EGX will hold its board elections for the 2021-2025 term on Wednesday, 14 July. Here’s a rundown of the candidates vying to fill board positions.

The Cairo International Book Fair is ongoing at the Egypt International Exhibition Center today. The event will run through to 15 July.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

The EGX will today trial a new system to calculate closing share prices that is hoped to improve accuracy, increase trading volumes and boost foreign investment in Egyptian shares. The bourse is considering introducing an auction system to determine closing prices, a method used by some of the world’s biggest exchanges, and will today kick off a series of mock sessions between 3-4:30 pm CLT to test it out, the exchange said in a bulletin yesterday.

Attention, brokers: At least one representative from all licensed brokerage firms needs to be present at the trading floor during the trial sessions, which will also take place on Sunday and Monday.

“What is a closing auction?” we hear you ask. We spoke to EGX Chairman Mohamed Farid, who broke down how the new system could work.

As things stand, the EGX uses the volume weighted average price (VWAP), which uses all the trades that occur throughout a given session to determine a share’s closing price. This is in contrast to using the last traded price of the day for the closing price, a method which has declined in popularity since its heyday in the 1990s but is still used by several exchanges.

This could change if the proposal that’s currently being tested becomes a reality. Under the proposed system, closing prices will be based first and foremost on an auction that takes place before market close, Farid tells us. The results of the auction would then override the weighted average calculated from the latest session price.

And there’s another new acronym you may have to learn: Under the proposed system, a 30-minute moving-volume weighted average (MVWAP) would be used should the auction fail to attract enough bids and generate a closing price, the EGX boss said. The MVWAP, unlike the VWAP, only takes into account trades that are completed during the final half hour of the session.

The proposal would also introduce a new function on the EGX known as “post-auction trade at close.” This would allow investors, after a closing price is determined, to buy and sell at that particular closing price for a few minutes before the end of the session.

What’s the point of all this? The new system is best on international best practices and would improve accuracy of closing prices. But more important, it increases the probability of attracting portfolio investments from both foreign and local investors, Farid said. Equity investment funds — particularly those that are passive, tracker indexes, or are based abroad — prefer that exchanges allow post-auction trades, he added.

What happens next? The EGX will work on ensuring the stability of the system before rolling it out on the market, Farid said. More trial sessions will be conducted to ensure everything runs smoothly technologically, and brokers and market participants are made fully aware of the new system’s functionalities, he added.

A change to the EGX circuit breaker is in the works: Shares could be allowed to rise and fall by 20% during a single session before trading is suspended, Farid said. Currently, shares are suspended for the rest of the day if they move within a +/- 10% price range. The final limit hasn’t been decided by the EGX, he said.

Exchanges the world over fiddle with closing price mechanisms, with running arguments over what is the ‘best” methodology. Page 6 of this pdf provides a nice, succinct overview of last trade vs. closing auction vs. volume-weighted average, while real geeks will want to read this presentation (in English) from Banque de France (pdf).

Made-in-Egypt Sinovac jabs could land in clinics in two weeks: The first Made-in-Egypt Sinovac vaccines could be sent out to clinics around the country in the coming two weeks, advisor to the health minister Noha Assem told DMC’s Al Youm yesterday (watch, runtime 8:27). This is how long testing and analyzing the doses produced last week will take, she said.

This is slightly earlier than expected, coming ahead of the August date announced earlier by state vaccine-maker Vacsera. The company has manufactured 1 mn doses of the vaccine and is targeting 80 mn by the end of the year.

We’re expecting another batch of Sputnik V vaccines to arrive this week or the next: This is according to presidential health advisor Mohamed Awad Tag El Din, who was interviewed on Yahduth Fi Masr last night (watch, runtime 4:33).

We’re not sure how many doses we’re getting though, after Tag El Din failed to provide any specifics on the shipment.

Egypt received the first 210k-dose shipment of the vaccine in late June, under an agreement with Russia to send 10 mn jabs. An unnamed Emirati company is expected to dispatch as many as 20 mn doses of the vaccine to Egypt before year -end, but we don’t know yet whether the initial 10 mn agreed with Russia count towards that quota. Minapharm is also set to roll out the first locally manufactured doses of the vaccine this quarter as part of a plan to produce 40 mn doses every year.

The Health Ministry reported 161 new covid-19 infections yesterday, down from 164 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 282,582 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 26 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 16,332.

WHO cautions on lifting curbs: The World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on countries to use “extreme caution” when easing covid-19 restrictions as the spread of the Deltra variant causes infections to rise across the world, CNBC reports,

The UK is doing it anyway: The UK this week announced plans to lift covid-19 curbs by the middle of this month, despite a significant uptick in cases recently. As of 19 July, face masks will no longer be required and social distancing will become a thing of the past as the government insists that people must now live with covid like they do with the flu.

Spain is reimposing restrictions after its case rate became the highest in Europe due to the spread of Delta, the Financial Times reports. The rate almost tripled from 58 cases per 100k on June 29 to 156 on Tuesday. As a result, Spain has reimposed curbs on nightlife less than a month after easing restrictions, amid calls for curfew.

The silver lining: The rise in cases in the UK and Spain have not yet resulted in spiking hospitalizations, such as what happened during the first two waves, suggesting that the vaccine rollout is having an impact.

Vaccine nationalism blamed for spiking variants: Inequitable distribution of covid-19 vaccines are causing variants to spread especially in countries with low vaccination rates, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Tunisia calls for action on GERD at the UN Security Council: Tunisia is pressing the UN Security Council to call for trilateral binding agreement over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Reuters reports, citing a draft resolution submitted by Tunisia to the 15-member council.

Our first glimpse of the draft resolution text: It “calls upon the three countries to refrain from making any statements, or taking any action that may jeopardize the negotiation process, and urges Ethiopia to refrain from continuing to unilaterally fill the GERD reservoir.” The resolution was also reportedly calling for resuming the AU-led negotiations to reach an agreement within six months.

The UN secretary-general and the US have also warned against unilateral action, and on Tuesday called on the three countries to return to the negotiating table under the current African Union- led process.

But Ethiopia says that the resolution would marginalize the AU: A senior Ethiopian diplomat told Reuters that the resolution would “effectively scuttle” the AU-sponsored talks, and that the country is fighting against it. The upstream country “does not believe the matter falls within the purview of the council,” they added.

This has been the key disagreement between the countries in recent months: Sudan and Egypt have lost faith in the AU as a mediator and both want new players to be brought in to mediate the process. Ethiopia has refused and wants to continue with the current format.

Egypt and Sudan are trying hard to drum up the council’s support and hoping to get a majority of votes for the approval of the draft after Ethiopia notified the two downstream of unilaterally starting the second filling of GERD. Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry yesterday held talks with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a day after meeting representatives of the US, China, Russia, UK and France — the five permanent members of the council.

We’re on our toes as a vote is expected today or next week: The council's members will vote today if they have minor changes, yet the voting process could be pushed for next week if they have issues with the main points of the resolution.

But dial back your expectations: France’s UN representative and current chair of the Security Council said last week that it probably isn’t going to do much to intervene in the dispute beyond encouraging the countries to resume talks.

The Cairo Cleaning and Beautification Authority will assign a contractor to collect waste from around Cairo until the procedures are completed for launching an official public tender, under a decision approved by the cabinet during its weekly meeting yesterday, according to a statement. The draft executive regulations of the Waste Management Act are currently under review by the cabinet and are expected to be approved within the coming 3-5 weeks.

Higher allocation for waste-related campaigns: Public awareness campaigns for hygiene and the new waste management system will receive more public funds in the FY2021-2022 budget, the statement said, without providing further information.

You can learn more about what the new bill means for our waste management system in our Going Green feature here.

Also approved during the meeting: A new French university: The cabinet approved the agreement signed between the government and the French Development Agency in June to re-establish a new campus for the French University in Egypt. The French government has allocated EUR 12 mn towards the university.

GERD continues to be the top story on talk shows last night: Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry’s meetings in New York to lobby for the support of the UN Security Council’s members ahead of today’s session were widely covered by Yahduth Fi Masr (watch, runtime 1:17), Masaa DMC (watch, runtime 1:13) and Al Hayah Al Youm (watch, runtime 1:02), while the meeting and its potential outcomes got analysis on Hadeeth Al Kahera (watch, runtime 20:58). The impact of the second filling of the GERD was also examined by Yahduth Fi Masr (watch, runtime 3:46) and Ala Mas’ouleety (watch, runtime 6:11 I 7:10 I 2:56). We have more coverage on this in the news well, above.

The Ever Given release from the Great Bitter Lake also dominated the talk show coverage: The Suez Canal Authority boss Osama Rabie made an appearance on Masaa DMC (watch, runtime 6:53), Ala Mas’ouleety (watch, runtime 18:00) and Yahduth Fi Masr (watch, runtime 5:55) to discuss the signing ceremony, the compensation agreement with the Ever Given’s owners, and the departure of the ship. The presser held on the sidelines of the signing ceremony was also covered by Al Hayah Al Youm (watch, runtime 3:51).

Everyone and their mother is talking about the Ever Given in the foreign press this morning after the ship finally left the Suez Canal following a ceremony to mark the signing of a final settlement agreement between the ship’s owner and the Suez Canal Authority: Reuters | AFP | AP | Wall Street Journal | Washington Post | NYT | BBC.

Also making headlines:

• Human rights: Italian lawmakers have called on the government to award Italian citizenship to Patrick Zaki — a Bologna University student who has been detained in Egypt since February 2020 on charges of inciting against the state. (Associated Press)
• Cruising the Nile is among the 10 most searched-for bucket list travel experiences, coming in fourth place with 7.9k searches per month on a list put together by luxury travel company Unforgettable Travel. Visiting Burj Khalifa in Dubai was the most searched travel experience, while other experiences in the US and France dominated the list. (CNBC)

Other things we’re keeping an eye on this morning:

• Egypt is arranging for the return of Egyptians stranded in the UAE to Cairo due to their inability to travel back to Saudi Arabia, which suspended flights with the UAE last week. Some 1.26k Egyptians have so far asked to return home.
• EgyptAir resumed direct flights between Cairo and Düsseldorf on 2 July. The airline is operating three flights per week, running on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.

Ongoing talks aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear pact suffered a blow yesterday after the UN said Tehran had begun producing enriched uranium, according to Reuters. US and European officials warned that the move threatens to tank the negotiations, which aim to bring the US and Iran back into compliance with the 2015 accord.

Time is running out for world powers to reach an agreement with the moderate Rouhani administration. Ebrahim Raisi, a conservative hardliner hostile to the US, will be inaugurated as the country’s president on 5 August after coming first in elections in June.

It’s unclear where the status of the negotiations stand at the moment, and a date has not been set for the next round of talks in Vienna.

Omar Khashaba, partner in Algebra Ventures Fund II: Each week, my Morning / WFH Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Omar Khashaba, partner in Algebra Ventures Fund II (LinkedIn).

I'm Omar Khashaba, newly-appointed partner in Algebra Ventures Fund II. I joined the firm as an associate in early 2018 when we had only four companies in our portfolio, and I was fortunate enough to work with people who gave me the space to take on ever increasing levels of responsibility. Before joining Algebra as an investor, I was an entrepreneur with a background in law. I co-founded peer-to-peer tutoring marketplace Tutorama and later held an executive role at digital pharmacy startup Yodawy.

As an associate I worked alongside a partner and was responsible for activities in both the investment and portfolio management side of the business. My promotion to principal in 2020 effectively empowered me to run investments autonomously, to take companies to the investment committee and prepare the case independently. As a partner I’ll be doing more of that along with continuing to sit on the boards of companies and work with founders. I think the key difference will be in that I’ll have a seat on the investment committee and help make investment calls in the fund.

Our USD 90 mn fund II is targeting a first close in 3Q2021 and it's going to continue focusing on Egypt but we have some allocations for sub-Saharan Africa. That's where we see a lot of growth happening. They’ve proven to be great markets for portfolio companies to expand into and we’re increasingly seeing companies in those markets looking to expand to Egypt.

Series A is where we look to make the bulk of our investment. We have a number of sectors that we’ve benchmarked based on our assessment of structurally similar EMs in southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Looking at those markets provides an interesting foray for things we end up seeing here.

The pandemic took everyone by surprise but the impact it had varied. For some companies it's been the greatest accelerant they could've asked for. For others it's been painful. So our approach has been tailored to each company’s specific needs. We provided some additional cash runway to those that bore the brunt of the pandemic so that they were able to respond adequately to this new world. Having said that, I think the pandemic has obviously been difficult to cope with for all of us both on a personal and professional level.

The ability to work remotely has by far been the best thing that came out of it. Working remotely might have been an interesting thought experiment before but people were sort of culturally conditioned to having to be co-located out of an office. Even before the pandemic hit I would often do important work that required intense focus at home, and that's just a preference for the kind of environment I personally thrive in.

Having said that, I think work is a bundle and part of that is building relationships with your colleagues which is one of those things that has suffered over the past year. There are also other contexts in which you want a group of people in the same space, like brainstorming or having group discussions. The right balance would be mostly remote work with one or two days working from the office, which we’ve experimented with at Algebra and has so far worked very well.

For critics of WFH who think people aren't actually working from home, that means there was a problem there to begin with. If you, as a manager, need to be over your employees’ shoulder to make sure they’re working I would argue there are bigger problems that need to be dealt with. When you have great people around, you really don't need to be so concerned with the way in which they make decisions in a remote setting.

I wake up between 5 and 6 am, drink some coffee and start reading. I tend to set personal learning objectives every six to 12 months where I engage with a diverse range of topics. These days I'm really into 20th century world history, so I'll spend about an hour in the morning going through some reading. After that, I go for a run. It sets up the day in a way that gives me energy and helps me think clearly. Running is absolutely essential for me. During that time I'm either listening to podcasts or audiobooks.

I’ll come back at 8:30 am, take a shower, grab another shot of coffee and spend some time with my wife. I'm fortunate to live in a building with my extended family so I’ll also usually spend some time with my father and my brother too. At 9 am that's when I'll check my work email. I make a point to not check email before that, just so I can maintain a fresh mind. Between 9:15 to 9:45 I spend some time going through VC-related thought leadership and then at 9:45 I’ll join our Algebra daily stand up call. Once that’s done I'll get into my actual day. I make sure to audit my calendar and be very deliberate about scheduling. One of the hardest things about VCs is that you have to context switch all the time. So I like to schedule my calls in a cluster and schedule two hour chunks to work on a single task. I try to think about the outputs I need to provide and audit my calendar accordingly to help make sure I'm not falling into the business trap of being busy all day without getting anything done.

Unless it's crunch time and we’re getting ready to prepare for an IC, I try to wrap up my day at 8 pm. That's when I'll spend time with my wife, have dinner, watch Netflix and catch up on the day. I deleted the mail app from my phone and I generally set all the apps to no notifications. It's really hard to be present when you have constant pop-ups on your screen

As far as personal books go my recommendation would be the German classic Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It's a book I initially read in high school that has had a profound impact on me. It speaks to an innate part of the human condition and the struggle to transcend the limitations that life imposes.

In terms of VC or business-related book recommendations: I’d have to pick Reed Hastings’ No Rules Rules. It's a book about how you create the right culture in an organization. Netflix is a company that achieved an incredible feat, and much of that is due to very deliberate decisions about how to recruit and build culture.

Another book I found incredibly helpful was Seven Powers by Hamilton Wright Helmer. It's mainly about business strategy but it takes a lot of mainstream thinking and strategy and boils it down to seven frameworks for developing a competitive advantage. You want to make sure you have the conceptual tools and the intellectual framework on hand to be able to identify companies that are likely to succeed in a repeatable manner.

My role model in life has always been my mother, Dr. Hala Hamza, a pediatric cardiologist, who spent her entire life dedicated to the tens of thousands of children she helped and treated over the course of her career. She was someone who was unwavering in her commitment to doing the right thing no matter the consequences. I try to live by her example everyday, doing the right thing because it's the right thing, no matter the consequence.

1-10 July (Thursday-Saturday): The government’s fuel pricing committee will meet to announce 3Q prices.

8 July (Thursday): The UN Security Council will meet to discuss the GERD crisis with Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.

14 July (Wednesday): The EGX will hold board elections for the 2021-2025 term.

Mid-July: Legislative session expected to end.

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

21 July (Wednesday): Clean Energy Business Council’s webinar Women entrepreneurs in clean energy (3pm)

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

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

23 July-11 August (Friday-Wednesday): Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

2-4 August (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt is hosting the Africa Food Manufacturing exhibition at the Egypt International Exhibition Center.

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.

3-5 September (Friday-Sunday): The World Karate Federation will hold the third competition of the 2021 Karate 1-Premier League in Cairo.

12-15 September (Sunday-Wednesday): Sahara Expo: the 33rd International Agricultural Exhibition for Africa and the Middle East.

15 September (Wednesday): The CFO Leadership & Strategy Summit is taking place in Egypt.

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.

30 September-8 October (Thursday-Friday): The Cairo International Fair, Cairo International Conference Center, Cairo, Egypt.

30 September: Closing of 2021’s first oil and gas tender in the Gulf of Suez, Western Desert, and the Mediterranean.

1 October (Friday): Businesses importing goods at seaports will need to file shipping documents and cargo data digitally to the Advance Cargo Information (ACI) system.

1 October (Friday): Expo 2020 Dubai opens.

6 October (Wednesday): Armed Forces Day.

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

12-14 October (Tuesday-Thursday): Mediterranean Offshore Conference, Alexandria, Egypt.

18 October (Monday): Prophet’s Birthday.

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

24-28 October (Sunday-Thursday) Cairo Water Week, Cairo, Egypt.

27-28 October (Wednesday-Thursday) Intelligent Cities Exhibition & Conference, Royal Maxim Palace Kempinski, Cairo, Egypt.

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

30 October – 4 November (Saturday-Thursday): The first edition of Race The Legends, Egypt.

1-3 November (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Energy exhibition on power and renewable energy, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

November: Egypt will host another round of talks to reach a potential Egyptian-Eurasian trade agreement, which can significantly contribute to increasing the volume of Egyptian exports to the Russia-led bloc that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

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

29 November-2 December (Monday-Thursday): Egypt Defense Expo.

12-14 December (Sunday-Tuesday): Food Africa Cairo trade exhibition, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

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.

14-16 February 2022 (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Petroleum Show, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo, Egypt.

1H2022: The World Economic Forum annual meeting, location TBD.

May 2022: Investment in Logistics Conference, Cairo, Egypt.

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.