PM — KSA could plug the Russian oil gap

Good afternoon, wonderful people. It is finally the weekend and if that weren’t cause enough for celebration, we have good news on the business and investment front to leave you with.

THE BIG STORY TODAY

UAE’s Al Futtaim Group is looking to invest around USD 700-USD 1 bn in Egypt over the next three years, CEO Omar Abdullah Al Futtaim said today in a meeting with Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly, according to a cabinet statement. Al Futtaim has discussed boosting investments in Egypt with several global investors represented by the group, especially in the industrial sector, the statement quoted the chief executive as saying.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

Oil prices eased today after Saudi Arabia indicated it could step up oil production if Russian output dips under sanctions, with international benchmark Brent crude falling 0.8% to USD 115.39 per barrel. The kingdom is “aware of the risks and that it is not in their interests to lose control of oil prices,” the Financial Times reports, citing people it says are familiar with the matter. This comes after EU leaders agreed to ban 90% of Russian crude by the end of the year as part of the bloc’s sanctions on Russia in retaliation for invading Ukraine, which initially pushed oil prices up.

The story is leading the conversation in the global business press this afternoon: Bloomberg | Reuters | Wall Street Journal | CNBC

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

• State grain buyer GASC has purchased 465k tons of wheat for shipment in July and August in a fresh international tender.
• Gov’t hikes customs exchange rate: The Customs Authority yesterday raised the USD customs exchange rate to EGP 18.65 from EGP 17.00 in May.
• Tullow and Capricorn in big oil merger: UK-listed energy firm Tullow Oil is merging with Capricorn Energy — formerly Cairn Energy — in an all-stock transaction that Reuters has valued at some USD 827 mn.

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???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

NEWS TRIGGERS you’ll want to keep an eye on as the new month gets underway:

• PMI: May’s purchasing managers’ index figures for Egypt and Saudi Arabia will be released on Sunday, 5 June. The UAE’s release is out tomorrow, Friday, 3 June;
• Foreign reserves figures for May should be announced sometime next week;
• Inflation figures for May are due out on Saturday, 9 June (from state statistics agency Capmas) and Sunday, 12 June (central bank figures);
• Capmas’ monthly bulletin covering the price of key building materials is due out on 5 June;
• The Central Bank of Egypt holds its policy meeting on Thursday, 23 June.

Conference season continues next week:

• Africa Health ExCon runs from Sunday-Tuesday, 5-7 June at Al Manara International Conference Center, Egypt International Exhibitions Center, and the St. Regis Almasa Hotel in the new administrative capital.
• Technology conference Tech Invest 4 will take place next Tuesday, 7 June at the Grand Nile Hotel in Cairo.

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

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- We’re maintaining our mild heat wave over the weekend with daytime highs of 37-38°C on Friday and Saturday and nighttime lows of 22°C, our favorite weather app tells us.

In case you didn’t catch the news yesterday: Johnny Depp was awarded USD 15 mn in the defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard. The Depp-Heard trial finally reached a close yesterday, with the Pirates of the Caribbean actor coming out on top after suing Heard for USD 50 mn in damages over a 2018 essay published in The Washington Post, where she said she had become a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” A Virginia court ruled that Depp would receive USD 10 mn in compensatory damages for libel and USD 5 mn in punitive damages, while Heard would receive USD 2 mn in compensatory damages for her counter-lawsuit, reports the Financial Times.

The trial had turned into a media circus across traditional outlets and social media where the memes were rampant. As the case comes to a close, the BBC and The Telegraph have rounded up some of the best moments from the trial in a last huzzah for one of Hollywood’s most recent real life dramas.

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Daimler Truck Holding sees no downturn in the truck manufacturing business as the component crunch begins easing: The world’s biggest truck manufacturer has positive sentiments concerning the chip shortage crisis, seeing promising signs that the worst has passed, company head Karin Radstrom told Bloomberg. The break in the clouds comes after months of factory outages due to covid-19 and component shortfalls, which means that even amid a slowing economy, the truck business has a long backlog that is keeping it busy. Demand is still outpacing supply in the sector as transport booms worldwide, she added. However, Radstrom is trying to keep his expectations in check, saying “It’s better, it’s not perfect, but it’s better than last year.”

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We Own This City gives you an inside look at police corruption during a real event: The new HBO show looks at the events of 2015’s Baltimore as riots broke out across the city over the suspicious death of 25-year-old Black man Freddie Gray. Facing pressure over the public outcry, the Baltimore Police Department turned to a hero among the ranks, Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, who leads a Gun Trace Task Force that aims to help get guns and narcotics off the street. His task force is especially important at the time as the city reached its highest murder count in more than two decades. While this all sounds fine and dandy, an unprecedented criminal conspiracy is unfolding within the police department as Jenkins and his crew take advantage of their rank and spearhead acts of corruption left and right. We Own This City is a depiction of the US political sphere and the many liberties it affords to its officers in blue that allow them to essentially take control of the city.

⚽ The UEFA Nations League is on tonight, with 10 matches set to begin, while Albania’s match against Russia canceled for the night. We recommend tuning in to the Czech Republic v Switzerland match and the Spain v Portugal match, which will both kick off at 8:45pm.

IN OTHER FOOTBALL NEWS: Get your Egypt v Guinea tickets: First-class tickets for the upcoming Egypt v Guinea AFCON qualifiers game on Sunday will cost EGP 200, second-class tickets will cost EGP 100, and third-class tickets will cost EGP 50, the Egyptian Football Association announced. Around 40k supporters will be allowed to attend the game at the Cairo International Stadium, and tickets will be sold via Tazkarti.

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Korba’s Pepenero makes its way to New Cairo: The iconic Italian restaurant that all those who visit Korba know and love has opened its second branch in New Cairo recently. The restaurant serves all the Italian essentials, from pizzas to pastas, as well as main dishes with chicken, steak, and salmon. We love their ravioli primavera, lasagna, and their risotto di mare. On the pizza side, their burrata pizza is a must-try with a heaping ball of the delicious cheese sitting pretty on top. For a non-pizza option, try their pollo pizzaiola con fusilli with chicken in a herbed tomato sauce alongside red sauce pasta. We recommend their tiramisu or their pizza dolce (a sweet chocolate pizza) for dessert.

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Mellow dream pop band Cigarettes After Sex are playing in Cairo this weekend. The band will take the stage at Cairo Jazz Club 610 on Saturday night at 7pm.

Wissa Wassef’s exhibition The School of Instinctive Creativity is on display at Ubuntu Art Gallery. The exhibit will run until 21 June.

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Hard Money’s Mn USD Podcast — not necessarily written that way, but thank you email spam filters — puts comedy into the stock market. The hosts are Enrique Abeyta, a 25-year stock market trader and former hedge fund manager who has managed bns of USD, and Matt Saincome, founder of punk comedy website The Hard Times — who definitely has not had much luck with the stock market. The unlikely duo take on a fun and ambitious mission: To invest USD 10k of Matt’s money until it grows to USD 1 mn. Every week, the pair discuss their latest investments and online moneymaking through games such as online poker. In some episodes they also call up an investor to give them his/her two cents and how to proceed from where they’ve left off.

How well have they done so far, you ask? Abeyta and Saincome have made it to USD 42k as of last episode, so you can still catch them on their wild ride.

The EGX30 fell 0.8% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 447 mn (47% below the 90-day average). Local investors were net buyers. The index is down 16.3% YTD.

In the green: Ibnsina Pharma (+7.1%), Madinet Nasr Housing (+6.3%) and Palm Hills Development (+3.6%).

In the red: CIB (-2.4%), EFG Hermes (-2.0%) and Oriental Weavers (-1.7%).

The simple plant that’s surprisingly effective (and versatile) in mitigating climate change: Seaweed. The microalgae, which typically grows in saltwater such as oceans and seas, is “incredibly efficient at sucking up carbon dioxide and using it to grow,” according to a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Seaweed is considered particularly sustainable due to it being “low-to-no input because they don’t require feed, freshwater, or fertilizer.”

Its environmental impact can be seen both under and above water: In addition to absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and contributing to the Earth’s total oxygen production (scientists estimate as much as 80% of the world’s oxygen is produced from the ocean), seaweed also devours harmful gasses such as phosphorus and nitrogen. The plant also plays an important role in maintaining healthy aquatic ecosystems, as they “improve water quality and create habitat for other species,” the NOAA study notes. Seaweed is also helpful in counteracting eutrophication — the process through which water becomes overly filled with nutrients, giving rise to unwanted species — by consuming nitrogen and phosphorus from the water and using it as nutrients to grow.

It’s not just about what’s in the air or water. Seaweed is versatile enough that it can be used as a packaging material, for example, making it a viable alternative to plastic packaging that some businesses are utilizing. The push to move away from relying on single-use plastic and to find ways to address plastic pollution has also seen scientific breakthroughs such as relying on microorganisms to help with the plastic recycling process.

There are also a handful of commercial products seaweed can be used to produce across several industries. In pharma, for example, “carrageenan and algins are used in pharmaceuticals as binders, stabilizers, emulsifiers and for creating molds,” and are also among the ingredients used for solid and liquid medications, as well as wound care products. Seaweed also makes its way into several cosmetic products, such as face masks, creams, and shampoos, and is also sometimes used as an organic fertilizer for plants.

And the cherry on top: Seaweed farming is relatively simple, which is another reason for the macroalgae’s farming boom. They do not require fresh water, and another benefit is the fact that harvesting the aquatic plants is undemanding. Rhianna Rees, a seaweed researcher and Seaweed Academy coordinator at SAMS Enterprise, recently spoke to CNBC about the ease associated with farming the macroalgae. “It’s a lot less industrial than it might come across,” she said. “When you think of farming you think of big machinery, you think of mechanical harvesting, and that’s not at all what seaweed farming is about.”

Considering all these benefits, it’s not surprising that the seaweed industry is growing: The seaweed industry reportedly raked in an impressive USD 14.7 bn in “first-sale value” in 2019, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Globally, the sector has been expanding dramatically for decades. A FAO report detailed that seaweed production had surged from “10.6 mn metric tons in 2000 to 32.4 mn metric tons in 2018.”

UK + US are jumping on the wagon: The UK is reportedly upping its efforts to harvest the aquatic treasure, including with the recent launch of The Seaweed Academy, the kingdom’s first dedicated seaweed industry facility. The aim of the seaweed facility is to spur the commercialization of the UK’s macroalgae sector and boost the competitiveness of the country’s seaweed products in a global market that is dominated by countries in eastern and southeastern Asia. The UK government allocated approximately USD 500k for the project. The US is also looking to get in on the seaweed farming game, with the NOAA stating that dozens of farms are currently operational in waters off New England, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. In 2019, Alaskan farmers produced over 112,000 pounds of seaweed, a 200 percent increase over the state’s first commercial harvest in 2017, according to the report. The NOAA dubbed the seaweed industry the “fastest-growing aquaculture sector” in the US.