EnterprisePM — Turmoil in global markets sees equities falling and bond yields rising as an energy crisis and fears of persistent inflation take hold.

It’s Armed Forces Day here in Egypt, ladies and gentlemen, and we’re very thankful for a three-day weekend starting tomorrow. Just a couple more hours now…

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi observed the occasion with a speech today (excerpt: watch, runtime: 3:01) thanking the Armed Forces and people of Egypt for their sacrifices on the battlefield and for facing down economic hardships. The speech also expressed thanks to our regional allies for their support during the 1973 war as well as more recent economic assistance.

A REMINDER that today is about much more than the start of a long weekend, courtesy the Twitter feed of Abdel Hamid Ahmed Hamdi, chairman and CEO of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Co. (LinkedIn). Hamdi lost his father at age 10 (and his mother was widowed at 28) when his father was killed in the October War. He and his mom visited his father’s grave today (here and here).

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THE BIG STORIES TODAY so far-

1- e-Finance released its public subscription notice (or “PSN” in insider-speak) as its offering to domestic retail investors will kick off on Sunday, 10 October. The subscription period for retail investors hoping to be allocated shares in one of the largest IPOs the country has seen in recent years runs through Sunday, 17 October. Expect e-Finance to announce early next week how it will price the offering. At the EGP 12.50-13.98 range outlined in its price range release, the IPO could be worth as much as EGP 3.6 bn and value e-Finance, a state-owned fintech platform and payments infrastructure company, at up to EGP 22.37 bn. The IPO will see 14.5% of the company offered to domestic and international investors. You can learn more about the transaction here, check out the PSN here (pdf) or visit the transaction microsite here.

CORRECTED ON SAT, 9 OCTOBER

Corrected the subscription period for the retail offering to from from 10-17 October, instead of 6-14 October. 

2- Egyptian banks could be in line for up to USD 1 bn in funding from the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank), according to statements attributed to the bank’s head of intra-African trade and corporate finance, Ayman Elzoghby, by Al Mal. He reportedly told the newspaper that the bank is in talks with four local banks for packages worth between USD 600 mn and USD 1 bn.

3- The Senate has constituted a full set of committees, electing members, heads and deputy heads for each. We’ll have the full list in Sunday’s EnterpriseAM.

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HAPPENING NOW- It may be a slow news day here on the eve of a long weekend, but it’s bonkers abroad, between turbulence in global stock and bond markets, a global corporate tax agreement seeming within reach, new calls for Facebook to be regulated or broken up, and pundits waking up to the notion that what we’re going through right now on the energy front is the first energy crisis of the green power era.

LET’S START WITH GLOBAL MARKETS, where European markets are taking it on the chin and futures suggest shares on Wall Street and in Toronto are going to be under pressure at the opening bell. The DAX, CAC, FTSE and STOXX are all in the red (each down more than 1% at dispatch time as they clawed back steeper losses from earlier in the session). CNBC says investors are getting the jitters as spiraling energy prices raise the specter that higher inflation could be here to stay for a good, long while. An unexpectedly sharp decline in German industrial orders at the same time as Spanish output grew slower than expected each added to the bearish sentiment in Europe.

The EGX bucked the trend and closed up 1% for the day. The benchmark index is now down 2.8% year-to-date.

You know who’s coming out on top of this? Oil and gas majors generally, and Aramco specifically. Aramco shares have been rising on the back of rising energy prices, bringing Aramco’s valuation at USD 2 tn and closing on Apple’s (the most valuable company in the world) USD 2.3 tn market cap, according to Bloomberg.

Aramco’s share price was also buoyed by a potential multi-bn USD sale of stakes in its natural gas pipeline network, with major PE players such as BlackRock, Apollo Global Management and Brookfield Asset Management all reportedly interested, people familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg. Aramco’s shares on the Tadawul rose 0.67% today to SAR 37.30 at dispatch time.

You know who’s taking the worst of it? This year’s high-profile European IPOs, Bloomberg writes, saying “many of this year’s biggest initial public offerings in Europe are now trading in the red” as investors are prompted by “surging bond yields … to dump highly valued growth shares.”

Could the energy crisis nibble into our carry trade? While equities have come under pressure this week, US and European bond yields are rising, making them more attractive to international bond buyers. The 10-year break even rate (difference in yield between inflation-protected and nominal debt of the same maturity) in the UK — one of the countries hardest hit by the EU gas crisis — climbed 10 basis points to 4.08%, Bloomberg reports. UK 10-year gilt rates reportedly surged to their highest since May 2019, according to the FT. Across the pond, yields on 10-year US treasury notes rose to 1.547% from 1.528% on Tuesday, according to the WSJ, while 10- and 30-year bonds reached their highest since June.

The conversation now turns to policymakers and the possibility of higher interest rates. The US Federal Reserve has already signalled it may start tapering its stimulus program as early as next month. With climbing yields in the UK, analysts speaking with Bloomberg say the market has already priced a rate increase by the Bank of England when it meets in December.

This makes this month’s central bank Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) a particularly interesting one. While Egypt still maintains one of the highest real interest rates in the world (the CBE has held rates steady for seven consecutive meetings), increasingly attractive yields abroad and rising interest rates in developed economies could have an impact on inflows here. The MPC is next due to meet on 28 October and one more time on 16 December before the year is out.

Oh, and speaking of shortages that could last into winter: Your favourite imported breakfast cereal may soon be in short supply. Workers at all of Kellogg’s US cereal plants went on strike today.

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SIGN OF THE TIMES- Allbirds is walking back some of its “sustainable IPO” claims. The company said in its prospectus early last month that it would do an “SPO” (that’s a “sustainable public equity offering”). Yesterday in New York, it filed a revised document that removes the claim it is “conducting this offering while following the SPO framework.” The Financial Times has more.

A RAY OF SUNSHINE (unless, of course, you’re a CFO trying to “maximize shareholder value”): “We are one millimeter away” from a global tax agreement, France’s finance minister has said. The declaration came after Ireland said it was “confident” that it can sign onto a revised agreement that would set a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15%. Look for more news on Friday at an OECD meeting that the Financial TImes says the European Union is billing as “make or break.”

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** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

• Private sector activity hits four-month low: Business activity in Egypt’s non-oil private sector continued to contract for the tenth consecutive month in September, but on the bright side, employment and business confidence are up.
• VC firm Sequence Ventures launches new EGP 500 mn fund: Dubbed Egypt Deep-Tech, the fund plans to invest in Egyptian startups operating in health-tech, fintech, ed-tech, prop-tech, logistics, and DevOps.
• Digital ins. startup Amenli raises USD 2.3 mn in seed round: The company will use the proceeds to expand its team and grow its operations of selling life, medical and car policies to middle-income Egyptians.

MEANWHILE- The Sovereign Fund of Egypt is now a member of the One Planet Sovereign Wealth Funds (OPSWF), according to a cabinet statement. OPSWF is a network of some 18 global sovereign funds that support one another in taking into account climate risks during the investment process and transitioning to a greener economy.

You can now listen to Making It on Spotify here in Egypt: The audio streamer randomly decided it will let Egyptians (and we’re guessing the rest of MENA) into its podcast world. One of us stumbled on the magic button earlier today. All of Spotify’s podcast roster is now available including The Joe Rogan Experience. However, we’re more interested in something closer to home, namely Enterprise’s podcast Making It, on which we speak with the founders and CEOs of brand-name businesses about how to build a great business here in Egypt.

RANDOM ASIDE: When you’re a corporate drone, but also an art nerd.

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☀️ YOUR WEEKEND WEATHER- Expect daytime highs between 31-32°C and nighttime lows of 19°C over the holiday weekend, according to our favorite weather app.

The IMF is calling on governments to protect investors from greenwashing in the sustainable investment industry. While assets in sustainable investment funds have doubled to almost USD 3.6 tn since 2017, an additional USD 20 tn will be needed to reduce worldwide carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, according to a report in the Financial Times, citing the IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report. At least 70% of this funding is expected to come from private sources. The IMF has called on regulators to prevent financial companies from “greenwashing” their environmental credentials to safeguard the growth of the industry, stressing the need for green frameworks to develop the sustainable investment fund sector as a driver of the transition to clean markets. Climate-oriented funds accounted for just USD 130 bn of the assets in sustainable investment strategies.

This comes shortly before the COP26 summit, set to run from 31 October to 12 November. The gathering aims to bring together parties to discuss action to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The climate debt trap is disproportionately affecting low-income countries, as climate finance comes in the form of loans rather than grants, a COP26 insider from a developing nation tells The Guardian. The insider appeals to developed countries to adopt a debt-for-adaptation swap, allowing low-income countries to convert repayments of loans to local currency and spend the funds on adaptation.

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Climate finance is one of the biggest topics being discussed at this year’s COP26. In 2009, developed countries pledged USD 100 bn a year in climate finance by 2020 to help lower-income countries mitigate the impacts of climate change and invest in green energy. That target hasn’t been met, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Estimates put the total investments at around USD 88-90 bn, with rich countries now scrambling to close the climate-finance shortfall of around USD 10 bn. Spain, Norway, Sweden, and Italy are among the countries expected to pledge more to help fill in the gap, the sources added.

In the meantime, since we’re failing at checking CO2, will we switch our focus to methane instead? Bloomberg Green seems to think so, arguing that eliminating methane from the atmosphere is a more plausible solution to the climate crisis. Methane locks in more heat than CO2 and accounts for nearly a quarter of the world’s observed heating over the past two and a half centuries. However, the gas fades away faster, meaning that “if we stopped emissions today, almost all the methane in the atmospheric blanket would degrade within a lifetime.” Also, we already have the tools needed to eliminate 58% of global methane emissions by 2030 by deploying them in sectors such as agriculture and oil and gas. Focusing on methane could be one of the “crucial achievements of the COP26 climate talks,” Hayley Warren and Akshat Rathi write.

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Google has rolled out a series of changes it says will help users save energy and reduce emissions. Google Maps will now default to the most eco-friendly route if the time difference isn’t major. Maps will also try to optimize your route for lower fuel consumption, lowering gas costs for users. The AI-powered eco-friendly routing has the potential to prevent over 1 mn tonnes of carbon emissions per year, equivalent to taking 200k cars off the road, it claims. The tech giant has also launched a wildfire boundary map powered by satellite data that allows for real-time updates to help people plan their course of action in times of emergency.

Google also introduced new features to help global policy making: The Environmental Insights Explorer Tree Canopy tool has been expanded to over 100 countries around the world. The tool can identify places in a city that are at the greatest risk of experiencing rapidly rising temperatures — or heat islands — so that governments know where they need to plant more trees. Finally, Google has released its new Address Maker app that will help governments and NGOs provide addresses to people and businesses around the world, allowing them to vote and gain access to public services.

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MEANWHILE- Nobel Prize week continues, with the prize in chemistry going today to America’s David MacMillan and Germany’s Benjamin List for their work in molecular chemistry. The two developed tools called asymmetric organocatalysts that researchers use to build new molecules, among other funky things. “The academy said the new generation of catalysts were both more friendly for the environment and [less expensive] to produce [than traditional metal catalysts and complex enzymes] and have been the key to making new substances such as pharmaceuticals, plastics, perfumes and flavours,” Reuters writes. Want to nerd out? Start with the live blog at Chemistry World.

Announced so far:

• The prize for medicine on Monday, going to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.
• Yesterday was the prize for physics, which was split by Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming.”

Up next:

• Literature — Thursday
• Peace — Friday
• Economics — Monday, 11 October

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-

(all times CLT)

Have you finished Squid Game and are itching for something similar? Check out Netflix original series Alice in Borderland which follows a group of delinquents shipped off to a wasteland to compete in a series of sadistic games. The Japanese thriller is based on a manga series and tries to keep the spirit of the graphic novel true in the acting and events of the TV show. The violence, tragedy, and darkness of the story are intertwined with scenes that depict the daily life in Tokyo, and together the two aspects comment on the state of society that allowed hopeful youth to turn their backs on their dreams, their future, and even their survival. Comic Years calls the show “one of Netflix’s best original series.”

After GoT’s disastrous ending, HBO will begin milking the IP for every last drop: HBO Max is out with the official teaser trailer (watch, runtime: 1:17) for the Game of Thrones prequel House of Dragons, which is set 200 years before the events of the show. No clear date yet for when the show will premiere except that it will air some time in 2022.

Naturally, the nerds are out in full force with reaction videos, explainers and analysis (watch, runtime: 12:32) of the trailer based on their wasted youths reading the as of yet incomplete book series.

ALSO- Remember when we wait Seinfeld would hit Netflix in October? It has, and we’re already half-way through season one, which reminded us that Kramer not only started the show with a different hairdo — he was also called “Kessler” in the pilot.

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⚽ Egypt and Libya are playing tomorrow at 9pm in the third round of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. The match marks the first official test for Egypt’s new national team coach, Carlos Queiroz. Egypt is currently in second place in Group F with four points, coming up behind Libya with six points. Gabon is in third place with one point while Angola has nilch.

Star goalie Mohamed El Shenawy suffered a back injury in his last training, but is expected to join the team on the field after it was deemed minor, team manager Wael Gomaa said on Al Nahar Sports (watch, runtime: 06:12).

A few picks from the European qualifiers for the World Cup: Latvia will go up against The Netherlands and Germany against Romania, both on Friday at 8:45 pm. Meanwhile, Andorra will play against England on Saturday at 5:45pm.

Don’t miss Italy and Spain’s semi-finals match in the European Nations League tonight at 9:15pm. Meanwhile, Belgium and France will compete tomorrow at 8:45pm. The victors of both matches will play in the finals on Sunday, 10 October.

???? Egyptian squash players are dominating the US Open with strong performances in the semi-finals. The all-Egyptian finals are tonight and Tarek Momen will play against Mostafa Asal at 8pm while Hania El Hammamy will play against Nouran Gohar at 7pm.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-

(all times CLT)

Jordanian indie band Autostrad are performing at El Sawy Culturewheel today at 8pm and tomorrow at 10pm.

Motherfunkers are hitting the stage at Cairo Jazz Club 610 tomorrow at 8pm. The DJing group is known for taking oldies songs and creating modern remixes.

Cairopolitan continues its Inktober event series with a workshop with Aya Tarek on a Nile Yacht on Saturday and another with Omar Mobarek at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir on Sunday. You can check out their full list of activities this month or register for a workshop here.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

The story of one of the pioneers of the PC era: Dell Technologies founder, CEO, and chairman Michael Dell recounts his experiences that took him from a college dropout to one of the most successful business leaders of our time. Play Nice But Win acts as a business guide and a memoir to piece on how Dell was created, grown, and transformed — all from the perspective of the man at the helm. Dell, the man, doesn’t take himself too seriously in his book and writes with a humorous narrative style that will keep you hooked while also explaining technical terms in a way everyone can understand. The book shows that it is possible to turn passion into a business and highlights how to survive in the ever-changing tech world. Now if they only made laptops that last beyond the 6-month mark, then we’d really have a story.

The EGX30 rose 1.0% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 1.14 bn (26.4% below the 90-day average). Foreign investors were net sellers. The index is down 2.9% YTD.

In the green: Sidi Kerir Petrochem (+3.0%), Orascom Development Egypt (+2.7%) and CIB (+2.4%).

In the red: Telecom Egypt (-3.4%), ElSewedy Electric (-1.9%) and Rameda (-1.5%).

The IMF is urging emerging-market policymakers to get a grip on cryptocurrencies, as miners, exchanges, wallets and stablecoin issuers crowd into the unregulated, Wild-West-style ecosystem that has sprung up around the digital gold rush. The latest chapter of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Global Financial Stability Report (pdf) acknowledges that the boom in crypto has the potential to bring benefits, especially in EMs, where traditional banking access can be limited. The report’s focus however, is the numerous risks posed by the rapid uptake of crypto, which the international organization says must be mitigated through swift action by policymakers.

EMs are leading the way on the crypto explosion: Total cryptocurrency assets increased tenfold since early 2020 to register more than USD 2 tn, according to the IMF. And while the inherent anonymity of some forms of digital currencies makes data collection tricky, the international organization says that early adopters in emerging markets and developing economies may be driving the boom. A 2020 Statista survey of users in 74 countries found that the top five in which respondents said they owned or used crypto assets were emerging market economies, with Nigeria — where 32% of respondents said they used crypto — leading the list. Large unbanked populations, weak central banks and vulnerable, inefficient or otherwise inaccessible traditional banking services are likely behind the growing popularity of crypto in EMs.

But rapid adoption raises the risk of “cryptoization”: If crypto adoption hits the mainstream in EM economies, residents could drop the local currency in favor of digital assets, weakening central banks’ ability to implement monetary policy. This could cause destabilizing currency mismatches, and exacerbate the consumer protection risks, according to the IMF report.

The IMF says the boom in crypto comes with a boom in risk: Outages during periods of turbulence, the potential for money laundering and terrorist financing, and the difficulty of regulating currencies based in offshore centers are among the concerns raised by the fund. So-called stablecoins, meanwhile, may be just the opposite: though they aim to peg their value to the USD, the makeup of their reserves can leave them open to runs, which could destabilize the wider financial system. Cryptocurrencies are, by nature, highly speculative assets. While some digital coins are stolen, others simply disappear. Of the 16k listed tokens globally, only 9k continue to exist, the IMF said, based on its own analysis of tokens listed on CoinGecko. The rest have vanished as the result of low volumes and developers throwing in the towel, or for speculative or fraudulent purposes.

Crypto trading is illegal in Egypt, but also seems to be ticking up: the Central Bank and Banking Act (pdf), which was passed last year, prohibits issuing, trading and promoting crypto in Egypt without explicit licensing from the CBE’s board. The central bank regularly puts out warnings on the dangers of cryptocurrencies, citing the same volatility and lack of consumer protection that the IMF takes issue with in its report. But that apparently hasn’t stopped a small but growing minority of Egyptians from dabbling in the crypto trade: peer to peer Bitcoin trading reportedly hit an all time weekly high of EGP 3.2 mn in 1Q2021. As in other EMs, Egypt’s large unbanked population, its high volume of remittances, and economic uncertainty caused by covid-19 could be driving the accelerated Bitcoin trading.

But aren’t cryptocurrencies basically unhackable? When Bitcoin first hit the headlines around a decade ago, its unique blockchain technology saw it labelled as “unhackable.” But in recent years, high-profile breaches have shown that cryptocurrencies’ novel strengths also come with particular vulnerabilities. At least USD 1.6 bn has been stolen from crypto platforms since 2014, according to the BBC. As the sector grows, the IMF says that such hacks will present an increasing threat to financial stability.

Next steps for policymakers: the IMF says that when it comes to regulating crypto, “time is of the essence, and action needs to be decisive, swift and well-coordinated globally.” It’s calling on governments to coordinate with each other to fill data gaps in crypto monitoring and law enforcement. It also wants states to implement the few global standards (mostly related to money laundering and bank exposures) that already exist, and to see what other existing international financial rules can be applied to the crypto market.

Egypt is already implementing some of the IMF’s EM recommendations: The IMF is also urging EMs and developing markets to address the push factors that discourage citizens from traditional banking by strengthening macroeconomic policies and financial inclusion — two areas the Egyptian government has been pushing hard in recent months. It also suggests that central banks beat crypto developers at their own game by developing their own digital currencies, improving payment technologies, and making cross-border payments (read here: remittances) “faster, cheaper, more transparent and inclusive.” Egypt’s central bank did float the possibility of launching its own digital currency back in 2018, though there don’t appear to have been any further developments in the interim.

Want more on crypto? Check out our two part explainer on what it means to “mine” bitcoin (Part I, Part II).

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

October: Romanian President Klaus Iohannis could visit Egypt mid this month to discuss ways to boost tourism cooperation between the two countries.

6 October (Wednesday): Armed Forces Day.

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

9 October (Saturday): Public schools and universities begin 2021-2022 academic year

9-15 October (Saturday-Friday): Turathna Exhibition, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

11-17 October (Monday-Sunday): IMF + World Bank Annual Meetings.

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

15-21 October (Friday-Thursday): Intra-African Trade Fair 2021, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Mid-October: The Egyptian Banking Institute, the Financial Services Institute, and I-Score will begin airing in mid-October the Digital Credit Scoring Webinar Series, a line-up of webinars on the banking sector and banking regulations.

18 October (Monday): E-Finance begins trading on EGX.

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.

28 October (Thursday): Second tranche of overdue subsidy payouts will be handed to eligible exporters.

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

31 October (Saturday): World Cities Day, Luxor, Egypt.

November: The French-Egyptian Business Forum is set to take place in the Suez Canal Economic Zone.

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.

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

2-3 November (Tuesday-Wednesday): The Federal Reserve meets to review interest rates.

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

16-17 November (Tuesday-Wednesday): Africa fintech summit, Cairo.

26 November-5 December (Friday-Sunday): The 43rd Cairo International Film Festival.

29 November-2 December (Monday-Thursday): Egypt Defense Expo, Egypt International Exhibition Centre.

7-8 December (Tuesday-Wednesday): North Africa Trade Finance Summit.

8-10 December (Wednesday-Thursday): Global Forum for Higher Education and Scientific Research (GFHS), Cairo, Egypt.

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.

14-19 December (Tuesday-Sunday): The Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theater.

14-15 December (Tuesday-Wednesday): The Federal Reserve meets to review interest rates.

15 December (Wednesday): Deadline for joint stock companies and investment companies in Cairo to join e-invoicing platform.

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

1Q2022: Launch of the Egyptian Commodities Exchange.

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

19 February 2022 (Saturday): Public universities begin the second term of the 2021-2022 academic year.

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

22-24 April 2022: World Bank-IMF spring meeting, Washington D.C.

May 2022: Investment in Logistics Conference, Cairo, Egypt

16 June 2022 (Thursday): End of 2021-2022 academic year for public schools

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

2H2022: IEF-IGU Ministerial Gas Forum, Egypt. Date + location TBA.

**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.