IPO WATCH- Banque Du Caire will IPO in 4Q2018: The IPO of Banque Du Caire is expected to take place in 4Q2018, said EFG Hermes Co-Head of Investment Banking Mustafa Gad in a presser held by the company on Sunday. He added that it was unlikely that the sale of the bank will take place outside capital markets, according to Al Borsa. Gad’s statement follows statements attributed to senior CBE officials that the central was reconsidering scrapping the IPOs of BdC and United Bank in favor of a stake sale to investors. EFG Hermes had been tapped to manage the listing.

Gad added that EFG Hermes expects to hold three IPOs in Egypt and one or two IPOs in the United Arab Emirates in 2018, according to Reuters. Two of the Egypt listing are expected to be Oriental Petrochemicals Company and Unionaire Group. Gad said he expects Unionaire’s IPO to be the largest in Egypt since 2015, according to Al Borsa.

What about United Bank? The fate of a United Bank listing is less clear, as banking sources say that a number of Kuwaiti banks are interested in acquiring United and have entered into talks with the bank. United Bank’s Islamic banking license has made appealing to Kuwaiti banks, they tell Al Borsa.

Problems with the state IPO program? Something appears to be afoot with the state IPO program, as sources report that there are divisions among the government on the timing of the program. Senior members of the Ismail cabinet have been pushing for releasing the timeline and lineup of the state IPO program by mid-January, government sources tell Al Masry Al Youm on Sunday. The push comes as the committee formed by the cabinet to run the state IPO program has yet to issue anything definitive about the program. These come amid concerns that the companies slated for listing are not yet ready, said Mohamed Maher, deputy head of the capital markets division of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce. He added that a final decision on when and how to pull the trigger has not yet been reached by the ministries of investment, finance and justice.

Possible legislation for the program: The move may require a political solution, and the cabinet may seek to pass legislation in the House of Representatives for the program, government sources told the newspaper. This would apparently take some political heat off the government for the outcomes of this key investment policy, they added.