EnterprisePM — FRA eases minimum required shares to list on the EGX.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, to a week where inflation appears to be leading the chatter in the global business press, while capital markets dominate headlines locally.

THE BIG STORIES TODAY

#1- FRA eases minimum required number of shares to list on the EGX: Companies looking to list shares on the EGX must now offer no less than 1% of the EGX’s total freefloat market cap, according to the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) new listing amendments (pdf) that are out today. Under the new regulations, companies should have a freefloat market cap (the number of shares in freefloat multiplied by the share price) of no less than 0.5% of the EGX’s total freefloat market cap.

Is the FRA paving the way for someone? Last we heard, state-owned e-finance is expected to be among the companies to offer stakes as soon as next month. Planning Minister Hala El Said had said last week that the state privatization program will resume this year.

#2- Banque Misr is planning to launch a fund that will invest in gold, Vice Chairman Akef El Maghraby, told Al Shorouk.

#3- Ten companies are in the running to purchase the Emirati energy firm Al Nowais’ license to operate a solar plant in Aswan’s Benban, an unnamed official in the renewable energy sector told Al Mal.

^^ We’ll have chapter and verse on all three stories in tomorrow’s EnterpriseAM.

HAPPENING NOW–

Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohamed Farid met US Central Command commander Kenneth Mckenzie, who’s here attending the Bright Star 2021 military drills — Egypt and the US’ annual joint military exercises (watch, runtime: 2:33).

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

• CBE likely to keep rates on hold:The Central Bank of Egypt will likely leave interest rates unchanged at its meeting this Thursday as it looks to keep inflation in check, according to a poll conducted by Enterprise.
• Egypt can withstand a US taper: Egypt should be able to cope if US interest rates rise as the Federal Reserve begins unwinding its covid stimulus programme, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said.
• Inflation continues its upward trend in August: Annual urban inflation hit its highest level in nine months in August on the back of rising food, fuel and transportation costs.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

Eighteen-year-old breakout star Emma Raducanu won the US Open final against fellow teenager Leylah Fernandez in straight sets last night, making her the first British woman to win a Grand Slam championship in 44 years. The sports marketing sharks are already circling: “If she wins she will become one of the hottest properties in British sport,” one brand consultant told the Guardian ahead of the match, while others drew comparisons between Raducanu and the sport’s highest-paid female athlete Naomi Osaka, who is worth a reported USD 37.4 mn.

In other global news, Iran will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to reactivate its cameras at the country’s nuclear facilities, newly appointed head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization Mohammad Eslami said today after a meeting with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi in Iran, Reuters reports. The move could be aimed at easing tensions with the IAEA, and comes a week before the organization’s board meets to decide whether to issue a resolution on criticizing Iran.

The ever so gracious Taliban will let women study at universities as long as they only enrol in gender-segregated classes — and abide by Islamic dress of course — Bloomberg reports. The new policies were announced days after Afghanistan formed its new all-male government.

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???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

FOR TOMORROW-

EFG Hermes’ fourth Virtual Investor Conference kicks off tomorrow and runs through to 21 September with the theme of “After Reflation — FEMs in 2022.”

Environment minister at AmCham: Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad will give a speech on strategies for generating green, private sector-led growth at AmCham’s virtual monthly event tomorrow. Register here.

THIS WEEK-

Interest rates: The Central Bank of Egypt will meet to review interest rates on Thursday, 16 September.

The UN General Assembly kicks off later this week, opening on Tuesday 14 September and running through to 30 September.

Israeli PM to visit Cairo this week? Axios’ Barak Ravid reports that Naftali Bennett will make an official diplomatic visit to Egypt for talks with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, which would be the first official visit to Egypt by an Israeli leader in more than a decade, and a first for El Sisi. The last Egyptian president to host an Israeli prime minister was Hosni Mubarak, who met Benjamin Netanyahu in January 2011.

The rumored visit comes amid reports that Egypt is preparing a new roadmap to restart Israel-Palestine peace talks, while cordial bilateral relations have recently been on public display. The Egyptian president in August extended the invitation to Bennett to visit, before calling Israeli President Isaac Herzog to wish him a happy Rosh Hashanah last week.

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- After the brief breeze over the weekend, the temperature will rise again tomorrow to 40°C in the morning and will drop to 23°C at night, our favorite weather app tells us.

Shippers all over the world are getting their biggest paydays since 2008: As the demand for goods bounces back but supply chains continue to be hampered by covid-19 induces port closures, the global demand for vessels is soaring, and with it the earnings of the shipping industry, Bloomberg reports. Container shipping rates have reached record highs, with it now costing USD 14k to ship a 40-foot steel box from China to Europe, a 500% y-o-y increase. This world’s largest container line AP Moller-Maersk A/S raised its expectations for its annual earnings by USD 5 bn last month.

Smart policy coming out of KSA: Saudi Arabia is taking steps to decouple state and business interests, barring ministers from holding positions on the boards of companies, according to a ministerial decree amendment published over the weekend. State-owned firms such as Saudi Arabian Oil Company and the Saudi Arabian Military Industries both have several ministers on their boards, reports Bloomberg, and it is yet to be seen how these firms will be affected by the loss of the prominent board members.

But there’s a loophole: The new decision does not include ministers whose chairmanship or membership was mandated by the prime minister.

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Apple users will no longer be forced to use the App Store’s payment tools, after a US court ruled that Apple was engaged in “anti-competitive conduct” in a case brought against the company by Fortnite developer Epic Games, The Verge reported. The ruling ends months of legal jousting between the two companies, with Epic also being required to pay Apple around USD 3.5 mn — or 30% of revenues collected during the period that Epic implemented an alternative payment system in the Fortnite app. But the Epic-Apple battle continues in South Korea, where Apple is refusing to allow Epic to relaunch the Fortnite app on the App Store unless the game developer agrees to “play by the same rules as everyone else,” according to Forbes.

An Apple car is still miles away: After seven years of efforts to produce electric and autonomous vehicles under Project Titan, Apple still has nothing to show for it, writes the Financial Times. Question marks arose last week on where the cars stand after the exec who led Project Titan defected to Ford. While Apple has supply chain expertise and a strong brand name, cars are a whole new ballpark and things like battery performance, interior design, and manufacturing at scale are still out of the tech company’s skillset, experts say. Apple’s cars drove 19k autonomous miles last year, a fraction of the 630k miles completed by Alphabet’s Waymo car project.

While we wait for the car: Apple is holding a virtual event on Tuesday where we can expect a new iPhone, new AirPods and probably a new watch. Apple has scheduled the event for 7pm CLT and shows it running for two hours. You can stream it here.

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What is Bezosism, you ask? The Wall Street Journal coined the term to describe the potent mix of surveillance, measurement, psychological manipulation, targets, incentives, and sloganeering that keeps Amazon workers trudging along despite harsh conditions. A successor to Taylorism and Fordism, Amazon’s ethos infuses the stable hierarchies and productive systems of the former with tech to create the super-productive fulfillment centers of the present.

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-

(all times CLT)

Nine Perfect Strangers — as the title suggests — crams a bag of eccentric strangers into the ethereal world of Tranquillum House — a wellness retreat led by white-clad guru Masha (Nicole Kidman). The series tries to answer the question: what can broken people offer each other? As a character-driven show, the star-studded cast share their back stories one by one, gradually shedding their anonymity until they’re no longer strangers. The show has been drawing comparisons to Big Little Lies and The White Lotus, so if you’re a fan of these two, this one is definitely for you. The show is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

????Egypt’s Farida Mohamed beat England’s Lucy Turmel on day three of CIB’s Egyptian Open squash tournament earlier today. The next round of matches will be played tomorrow at 12:45 pm by the Great Pyramid of Giza.

⚽ This afternoon in the Premier League: Liverpool will play against Leeds United today at 5:30 pm.

In La Liga: Real Madrid is up against Celta Vigo tonight at 9:00 pm, while Valencia is playing against Osasuna at 4:15 pm.

Serie A: Milan is taking on Lazio at 6:00 pm, while Roma plays against Sussuolo at 8:45 pm.

???? EAT THIS TONIGHT-

The most bang for your buck: Arigato Sushi & Grill serves a delicious range of sushi infused with all kinds of westernized creations. You can start this Japanese cuisine experience with a Miso soup, a Pirikara Tom Yum based soup and a jasmine tea, which all make a good prelude to the main courses. With fresh ingredients, Arigato’s rolls offer something for sashimi, sushi, and Nigiri lovers. Their reasonably priced plates are really good value for money, with All You Can Eat for only EGP 250 per person. Arigato just came online and is offering a 10% discount for three more days to anyone ordering through their website.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-

(all times CLT)

Garden City karaoke is back at ROOM Art Space & Cafe every Sunday starting today at 8:00 pm.

The Cairo Opera Orchestra is playing this orchestral season’s inaugural concert with the Cairo Opera choir today at 8:00 pm. Soloist Amira Selim, chorus master Carmine Colangeli and conductor Nayer Nagui will be performing pieces by Tchaikovsky, Gliere, Verdi, Puccini, Bellini, and Leoncavallo.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

The much anticipated Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney is written from three different points of view; an objective third person narration, the perspective of our protagonist Alice — a novelist navigating young adult life, and her friend Eileen. From emails, to personal encounters, and intimate relationships, Rooney showcases her characters’ personas in their everyday encounters. Like Rooney’s much-loved Conversations With Friends and contemporary cult favorite Normal People, the lifelike dialogue and profound intellect that the characters engage in makes this book both an exciting read, and a great underlying study of communication. The novel hit the shelves in physical UK bookstores on 7 September, and is currently available for preorder as an ebook on Amazon, where it will be released in the coming months.

The EGX30 fell 0.2% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 867 mn (43.4% below the 90-day average). Local investors were net sellers. The index is up 1.8% YTD.

In the green: Raya (+3.9%), Mopco (+2.4%) and Palm Hills (+1.6%).

In the red: MM Group (-2.9%), Eastern Company (-2.5%) and Cleopatra Hospitals (-2.2%).

Have US equities peaked? Some analysts are beginning to think so, after US stocks last week saw their worst performance since June, according to the Financial Times. The S&P 500 closed down 1.7% over the week on Friday and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 1.6%, as investors started to take heed of rising inflation and high costs caused by global supply chain disruptions as the delta variant stymies production.

Inflation worries: “The market is starting to think maybe 2022 will be a year when inflation remains high,” a Société Générale strategist told the salmon-colored paper on Friday after all three major US indexes sank in response to fresh inflation data. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones lost 0.8% and the Nasdaq 0.9% during trading after the Labor Department published figures showing the US producer price index grew 8.3% y-o-y in August, its fastest pace since it began calculating yearly wholesale price inflation in 2010. “I haven’t seen anything that convinces me of when this disruption will be resolved,” the analyst said, referring to persistent shortages in everything from semiconductors to food.

Time for a correction, say Wall Street Banks: Almost all Wall Street banks are now forecasting trouble in the markets as historically high valuations, a potential slowdown in US economic growth, and concerns that the Federal Reserve could begin unwinding stimulus weigh on outlooks, Bloomberg reports. Deutsche Bank says there is a “growing” risk of a market correction, Canaccord Genuity is predicting a “period of turmoil” for global stocks, while the CEO of financial services firm Ladenburg Thalmann is particularly concerned about what happens between now and the end of October, telling Bloomberg that “it’s the next six weeks in the market that I have the greatest fear of.”

Inflationary pressures could force US rate hikes to come sooner than we think: The Fed will raise interest rates by at least a quarter of a percentage point in 2022, according to 70% of economists surveyed by the FT, with 20% predicting the rate hike to come in the first half of next year. That would be around a year earlier than the Fed has publicly stated, with chair Jay Powell saying earlier this year that the bank would wait until 2023 before making the move.

Economists also expect the central bank to wind down its pandemic-era bond-buying program later this year, with most of the 49 economists polled predicting the taper to begin in November or December 2021 and be completed by next year.

But darkening clouds in the US could put all of this on hold: The rapid US economic recovery is starting to come undone as the spread of the delta variant forces businesses to rethink their plans, the Financial Times reports. A new study shows that around a quarter of small US businesses have seen revenues fall over the past three weeks, the nation’s biggest airlines have seen a dip in demand, while an increasing number of executives are warning that the spread of delta is increasing uncertainty about their forecasts.

This comes a week after an unexpectedly poor August jobs report raised doubts over the strength of the US labor market and the sustainability of the economic recovery. The Fed has said that it wants to approach maximum employment before it begins to withdraw stimulus.

5-12 September (Sunday-Sunday): Arab Labor Conference, the InterContinental CityStars Hotel, Cairo, Egypt.

11-12 September (Saturday-Sunday): International Conferences on Economics and Social Sciences, Cairo

12 September (Sunday): International schools begin 2021-2022 academic year.

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

13 September (Monday): Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad will give a guest speech at AmCham’s monthly virtual event,

13-21 September (Monday-Tuesday): EFG Hermes’ fourth Virtual Investor Conference.

14-30 September (Tuesday-Thursday): 76th session of the UN General Assembly, New York.

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.

18 September (Saturday): Expiration of United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh/ISIL

21-22 September (Tuesday-Wednesday): The Federal Reserve meets to review interest rates.

22-25 September (Wednesday-Saturday): Cityscape Egypt, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

29 September (Wednesday): DevOpsDays Cairo 2021 is being organized by ITIDA and the Software Engineering Competence Center in cooperation with DXC Technology, IBM Egypt and Orange Labs.

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.

30 September (Thursday): First tranche of overdue subsidy payouts will be handed to eligible exporters.

October: New legislative session begins — must be held by the first Thursday of October.

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

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.

1 October (Friday): State-owned companies and government service bodies selling goods and services to customers that have not yet signed 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.

6 October (Wednesday): Armed Forces Day.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

**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.