PM — Dogs can smell your stress

Happy almost-THURSDAY, friends. We’re almost at the finish line for the week, but the news cycle shows no signs of slowing just yet.

THE BIG STORIES TODAY

#1- Egypt’s external debt dropped 1.3% q-o-q to USD 155.7 bn during the fourth quarter of last fiscal year (from April-June 2022), down from an all-time high of USD 157.8 bn the preceding quarter, according to central bank figures.

#2- Beni Suef power plant tapped for SFE’s pre-IPO fund? The Siemens-built combined-cycle power plant in Beni Suef is reportedly going to be the first of the three plants that will be transferred to the Sovereign Fund of Egypt’s (SFE) pre-IPO fund before the end of the year, Bloomberg Asharq reports, citing three government sources. The fund is meant to prepare the state-owned assets and companies for stake sales. The SFE will offer stakes in the plant to strategic investors “at a later time,” the sources say. Planning Minister Hala El Said had said last month that one of the three plants will be among the first batch of assets that will be transferred to the pre-IPO fund, which plans to raise USD 6 bn from selling stakes in state-owned assets by mid-2023.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

The international business press is broadly focused this afternoon on the ongoing meltdown in the UK bond market, as the Bank of England holds its ground on ending its bond-buying program this Friday, 14 October. The announcement led to a renewed sell-off in gilts, while the GBP slid again. The story is on the front pages of the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and CNBC.

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

• The IMF expects more than a third of the global economy to contract “this year or next,” it warns in its October World Economic Outlook.
• We’re getting EUR 40 mn from the EBRD for freight + passenger rail line: Egyptian National Railways could be securing a EUR 40 mn loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to partially finance work on the Robeiky-10th of Ramadan-Belbeis freight and passenger railway line.
• Fintech and fintech-enabled startups are up for a funding boost after Mastercard closed a “strategic” investment in fintech fund Nclude.

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Take our EV survey: Are you an ex-petrolhead shopping around for your first electric vehicle? EV-curious and wondering what all the fuss is about? Or are you not ready to say goodbye to that sweet smell of benzene as you wait at the gas station?

We want to hear from you: We’re taking the pulse on how the nation feels about Egypt’s nascent EV transition. Take a few minutes to fill out our short survey. We’ll be back with the results in a couple of weeks.

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???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

Bread reform committee should get House approval on Sunday: The House will approve Supply Minister Ali El Moselhy’s proposal to form an ad hoc committee to look into possible changes to the country’s massive bread subsidy program during its session on Sunday, 16 October, head of the House agriculture committee Hesham El Hossary told reporters yesterday.

The EGX is looking to drum up interest in listed companies on a roadshow to Dubai and Abu Dhabi later this month, an EGX source told Enterprise. The bourse has tapped Al Ahly Pharos to help manage the roadshow, with EGX boss Rami El Dokany set to meet with as many as 100 regional and international financial institutions, the source said.

Fuel prices to rise this month? We’re expecting the government to hike fuel prices for the seventh consecutive quarter when the fuel pricing committee meets this month. Fuel prices have risen by as much as 28% over the past 18 months in response to heightened international oil prices, which surged earlier this year on the back of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Will Sidpec buy Ethydco? Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals’ (Sidpec) board will discuss the potential acquisition of state-owned Egyptian Ethylene and Derivatives Company (Ethydco) through a share exchange, at an extraordinary general assembly meeting next Thursday, 20 October, according to an EGX disclosure (pdf). Sidpec has tapped NI Capital as advisor, the company said in a statement (pdf) to the bourse.

????TOMORROW’S WEATHER- It’s going to be another partially cloudy day, giving us a daytime high of 30°C and a nighttime low of 20°C, our favorite weather app tells us.

Saudi Arabia’s mega city Neom is luring in top management talent with USD 1.1 mn paychecks, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing an internal document. Riyadh is offering execs USD 1.1 mn annual incomes with zero taxes — and that’s without the added bonuses. The average annual income for c-suite executives is some USD 830k, according to data from MyLogIQ tracking around 3k major listed companies in the US, while top executives earn between USD 416-486k a year.

The generosity has some limits: Annual entry level incomes at Neom are around USD 54k, a little over half of the USD 100k annual income Wall Street and major consulting firms have been offering in recent years. People close to the recruitment process say Neom offers packages based on prospective employees’ salaries at their previous employer, meaning there could be major pay gaps depending on where employees are recruited from.

Your dog may be able to smell your sadness and anxiety: Their extraordinary sense of smell keeps us safe from dangerous situations in airports and can even identify life-threatening diseases, but a recent study by Queen’s University in Belfast has discovered that dogs are equally skilled at detecting human stress. Dogs are able to sniff changes in human breath and sweat, alerting them to chemical odors released when someone is stressed. Researchers collected sweat and breath samples from 36 human participants before and after they were given a difficult math problem to solve, using only samples from those with an elevated blood pressure and heart rate. In roughly 94% of the 720 trials, four different breeds of dogs correctly alerted the researchers to each person's stress sample. This proven ability for canines to perceive human stress adds value for training service and therapy dogs, according to researchers, proving that dogs have the ability to reduce anxiety and depression symptoms.

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
(all times CLT)

Too spooked to watch Halloween movies? Dead To Me tackles the oddly humorous aspects of grief, loss, and forgiveness in a way that won’t make you jump out of your seat. The series follows Jen, whose husband was killed in a hit-and-run, turning her into a cynical widow desperate to solve the crime. At a support group, she meets cheerful freespirited Judy, who is suffering from a loss of her own. Despite having completely different personalities, the two end up becoming friends through a mutual appreciation for life’s truths, while Judy tries to shield Jen from an ugly secret that threatens to destroy her life as she knows it. You can watch the series in its entirety on Netflix.

⚽ Barcelona and Inter will compete in the most prominent match of the Champions League tonight at 9pm. Barcelona will be chasing a win after losing two of their first three matches, while Nerazzurri will look to replicate last week’s success in Spain. In the other match in Group C, Bayern faces off against Plzen at the same time in an attempt to continue its undefeated streak in its fourth match of this year’s Champions League.

So far, the point standings are: Bayern (9 points), Inter (6 points), Barcelona (3 points), Viktoria Plzen (0 points).

Liverpool will face the Rangers in Scotland tonight at 9pm in a match that Liverpool also needs to win after the team’s league standing dropped 14 points behind current leader Arsenal. At 6:45pm, Napoli will play Ajax in the same group.

The current point standings are: Napoli (9 points), Liverpool (6 points), Ajax (3 points), Rangers (0 points).

The rest of today’s games:

Atletico Madrid v Club Brugge (6:45pm)

Bayer Leverkusen v Porto (9pm)

Tottenham v Eintracht Frankfurt (9pmpm)

Sporting Lisbon v Marseille (9pm)

???? OUT AND ABOUT-
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ThatReallyCoolStudio’s series Spot On — a monthly exhibition spotlighting young and emerging Egyptian artists — kicks off with On The Road, an exhibition featuring Dalila Hassanein’s visceral large format impressions of Cairo, tonight from 7-10pm, with curated sounds by Yassine El Azzouni.

Head over to Karaoke Night at Room New Cairo to belt out your favorite songs at 8pm tonight.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Delve into a timely read that follows lives changed by the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity: American writer Kalani Pickhart (who, interestingly enough, has no ties to Ukraine) brings us his debut novel, I Will Die in a Foreign Land. The story follows four individuals during the volatile period of Euromaidan demonstrations that began in 2013 to protest the Ukrainian government’s decision to forge closer ties with Russia instead of signing an economic and political agreement with the EU. Published in 2021 before the onset of the war, the novel dives into Ukraine’s turbulent history and folklore through the stories of the four characters that have each been impacted by the turmoil, including Misha, an engineer from a village near Chernobyl, whose wife died from radiation sickness.

The EGX30 fell 0.7% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 883.09 mn (9.8% below the 90-day average). Local investors were net buyers. The index is down 18.0% YTD.

In the green: Alexandria Containers and Cargo Handling (+1.7%), EFG Hermes (+1.2%) and Eastern Company (+0.8%).

In the red: Elsewedy Electric (-6.0%), Fawry (-4.4%) and Credit Agricole Egypt (-3.3%).

B’naires might have lost out this year (not that they’re likely to miss it), but the number of m’naires is on the rise. The number of people around the world with at least USD 1 mn in assets will grow to surpass 87 mn by 2026, up 40% from the m’naire population in 2021, according to Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report 2022.

UHNWIs: The number of ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individuals — those with wealth above USD 50 mn — grew in 2021, adding 21% new members during the year. The global population of UHNWIs is expected to rise by 45% to reach 385k by 2026. The UHNW group as a whole is led by North America with 146,680 members (56%), followed by 42,780 (16%) living in Europe, 32,710 (12%) in China and 30,010 (11%) in Asia-Pacific countries (excluding China and India).

World wealth is growing fast: Aggregate global wealth grew 9.8% y-o-y to total USD 463.6 tn last year. Accounting for FX rate changes, the pace of growth was 12.7% — the fastest annual rate ever recorded. North America and China together accounted for 75% of that growth, while Africa, Europe, India and Latin America together accounted for just 11.1% of the rise in global wealth.

And it’s not about to stop: While the Russia-Ukraine war and global inflation will likely hinder wealth creation in the short term, global household wealth in nominal USDs is likely to increase by another USD 169 tn — up 36% — by 2026.

China is expected to double its m’naire population to number 12.2 mn in the next five years, despite current lagging growth amid ongoing pandemic lockdowns. “We expect household wealth in China to continue to catch up with the United States, advancing the equivalent of 14 US years between 2021 and 2026.” the report says.

Africa’s m’naire population pales in comparison but is also on the rise: Credit Suisse expects the number of African m’naires to nearly triple, reaching 961k by 2026. (Remember: Egypt is home to some of the highest net-worth individuals in Africa, hosting seven of the continent’s 21 b’naires). The report doesn’t, however, get into the specifics of any countries in Africa beyond Nigeria and South Africa, noting that there is a lack of “reliable data” from which it can draw comparisons and conclusions. These two countries were selected as points of comparison to the continent as a whole, considering they are sub-Saharan Africa’s two biggest economies, the report says.

It should come as no surprise that Saudi Arabia has the largest economy and the greatest household wealth in MENA, while the UAE is the second wealthiest Gulf state. According to the report’s estimates — which were drawn from the relationship between household wealth and factors like household consumption, stock share prices, and home prices, observed in other nations — Saudi Arabia’s total household wealth at the end of 2021 was USD 2.1 tn, compared to USD 1 tn in the UAE. But due to Saudi Arabia's larger population, the United Arab Emirates' wealth per adult at the end of 2021 (USD 122,841) stood 46% higher than that in Saudi Arabia (USD 84,407). Meanwhile, median wealth per adult was USD 19,323 in Saudi Arabia and USD 23,055 per adult in the UAE in 2021.