Sawiris “tired” of ONTV, sells it to Abou Hashima.

The House of Representatives’ budget and economics committees are set to meet on Tuesday to discuss approving a USD 243 mn loan from the Arab Monetary Fund, Al Borsa reports. The loan, which carries a 1.2% interest rate, will be used to shore up FX reserves, said Economics Committee member Ashraf Al Araby.

…As we noted yesterday, Central Bank of Egypt Governor Tarek Amer is set to appear before the House today to discuss the FX needs of industry. The House Industry Committee will request that 20-30% of the CBEs monthly FX allocations be earmarked for the manufacturing sector. (Yesterday’s Al Borsa piece puts the figure at 20-30%; today’s says 20-25%.)

Today’s high temperature is set to come in at about 41°C — that’s 4°C cooler than yesterday’s official high, and about 9°C cooler than the high of 50°C that a couple of us witnessed yesterday. In an interview on MBC Masr, Meteorological Authority head Ahmed Abdel Al called reports that today would be even hotter “rubbish.” Egypt’s hottest day of the year so far led to blackouts of up to seven hours in some areas of Cairo (including Enterprise and Inktank Global Headquarters in Maadi) and intermittent internet service.

Writing Enterprise with no internet and no A/C is a decidedly un-fun undertaking.

The two-day SME Banking & Finance Egypt 2016 conference kicks off today at the Fairmont Nile City Hotel, Cairo.

The Egyptian Capital Market Association’s 20th anniversary takes place tomorrow at the Four Seasons Nile Plaza Hotel’s Plaza Ballroom on 17 May 2016. Pharos Holding is platinum sponsor of the event. The occasion gets underway at 5pm with registration and networking, followed by remarks by ECMA Chairman Dr. Mohamed Taymour, Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority Chairman Sherif Samy and Investment Minister Dalia Khorshid. The evening will feature dinner and live entertainment. Joining for a panel discussion headlined “Egypt: For a Better Future” and chaired by Dr. Hani Sarie El Din are:

• Former Foreign Minister and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa
• Former Finance Minister of Finance Dr. Ahmed Galal
• Former Trade and Industry Minister Mounir Abdelnour (who also served as minister of tourism)
• Former Deputy Prime Minister of Egypt for Economic Development Dr. Ziad Bahaa El Din (who also served as minister of international cooperation)

Ticket information and other details of the event are available from Dalia Younis (01021188844 | dalia.younis@excellentdandn.com).

The Press Syndicate will hold another general assembly on Wednesday to discuss what’s next in its showdown with the Interior Ministry, Al Mal reports. The Syndicate postponed an assembly which was supposed to take place last Wednesday to decide on whether to hold a general strike.

On 25-26 May (Wednesday-Thursday) The Middle East and North Africa Solar Conference and Expo MENASOL 2016 kicks off at the Hyatt Regency in Dubai.

The second Africa and Middle East conference on software engineering (AMECSE) is happening at Intercontinental Citystars in Cairo on 28-29 May.

N Gage’s Investment Regulation Forum in cooperation with Pepsico kicks-off on 29 May (Sunday) at the Four Seasons Nile Plaza, Cairo. Register here.

Egyptian Media Company, owned by steel mogul Ahmed Abou Hashima, has acquired the ONTV network from Naguib Sawiris. Egyptian Media Company said the move comes as part of its aim to invest in Egyptian media “to restore Egypt’s prominent position in the media industry” regionally according to Daily News Egypt. Abou Hashima said the move would “be followed by other acquisitions of media outlets and drama production in addition to internet channels.” ONTV’s new editorial and programming direction will be set once the network’s top management meets with Abou Hashima over the coming days, said the channel’s chief, Amr Risk. Until then, all editorial functions will remain as is, he added according to Al Mal. (Ahram Online has the story in English, including a photo of what it suggests is Naguib and Abou Hashima shaking hands after inking the deal.)

The acquisition is part of a wider shakeup in the media industry, Al Masry Al Youm reports, saying Abou Hashima’s Egyptian Media Company has already acquired the Sout Al Omma newspaper as well. The paper’s editor-in-chief says he was not informed of any change in ownership and is looking for confirmation from the current owners, Al Borsa said. It adds that Emirati investors are in talks to acquire the Al Hayat channels, which are owned by Al Wafd politico El Sayed El Badawi.

Classic Sawiris: “I got tired of ONTV and so I sold it,” said former owner Naguib Sawiris in an interview in Al Ashera Masa’an on Dream TV (runtime: 22:09 — segment on ONTV’s sale at 13:25). The channel was running-up bills, proving to be a burden to the ever-entertaining Sawiris. He added that the network needed to diversify away from politics and into film and television shows to become profitable, something he had no interest in doing. No one pressured him into selling the channel, he said, adding that he had been considering it for some time.

MBC Masr will charge companies EGP 40-60k per ad minute during Ramadan, Al Borsa says. The TV channel prepared a package of 250 spots for 30 seconds each that would cost advertisers EGP 11 mn during the month. Thought that was extortionate? The channel is also reportedly requiring payment in USD only, saying its outlays are not EGP-denominated. A source at CBC said the company spent EGP 135 mn to acquire Ramadan mosalsalat (series) and other shows for month — and is looking to cash-in EGP 190 mn in ad revenue. It is charging advertisers EGP 10 mn for 240 spots, Al Borsa says. That’s right, folks, 240-250 spots. You’ll be watching the same ad over 10 times an hour. That’s one sunflower oil / ghee / detergent ad once every six minutes. Fun times ahead.

Pioneers Holding is planning to deploy cash of up to EGP 1.7 bn in new investments before the end of the year, Reuters reports, including acquisitions and capital increases in subsidiaries. Activities will focus on expansion through the real estate sector, as well as construction, food, and manufacturing, said Chairman Waleed Zaki. Pioneers seems particularly interested in the food and real estate sectors, where it has sunk some EGP 3.6 bn in the past three years. Expansion outside Egypt isn’t in the cards.

Confectioner Al Rashidy Al Asly (not to be confused with Rashidy El-Mizan, which Qalaa Holdings sold to Saudi Arabia’s Olayan Financing Company in November) has plans to IPO on the EGX sometime next year, company sources tell Al Borsa. UK-based frontier markets private equity firm Silk Invest, the majority shareholder in Al Rashidy Al Asly, is leading the listing and will apparently take steps in that direction today. The past two years have seen Al Asly achieve profitability on the back of sales growth and exports. The company, founded in 1888, is in talks with distributors in the MEA region and is planning to move production lines to Sixth of October from Sayeda Zeinab.

Beltone Financial has filed an appeal against repeated blocking and suspension of trades on its shares in the EGX with the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA), Al Borsa reports. The EGX had been reversing trading on Beltone Financial shares consistently since February due to suspicions of stock manipulation after the stock hit record highs for weeks on end, prompting Beltone to file a complaint on 28 April against the EGX. As we noted last week, EFSA is planning to bring charges of market manipulation against some traders in Beltone Financial’s shares.

The Central Bank of Egypt is looking into requiring Egyptian banks to comply with Basel III regulations ahead of schedule, a source told Al Shorouk. This, the source explains, will contribute to improving foreign currency-liquidity at banks, allowing them to meet their clients’ currency demands, and contain the rise of the USD. Presto — magic. Al Shorouk does not explain how this is meant to work (after all, neither magician nor confidence man is interested in revealing his secrets.)

The EGP strengthened slightly to between EGP 10.82 and EGP 10.85 to the USD in the parallel market on Sunday, on the back of a lower demand for greenbacks, Al Mal reports.

GB Auto will pump USD 306 mn into the tire factory it is planning on building, the company’s Chief Investment Officer Menatalla Sadek told Al Mal. The portion represents GB Auto’s 51% share in the project, estimated to cost USD 600 mn in total, which it is participating in with foreign partners. The company will self-finance 40% of its share of the cost and will rely on bank borrowing to cover the rest, Sadek added, and it awaits land allocation in the Suez Canal development zone.

EgyptAir has apparently resolved the issues it was having with copilots, resuming flights on Sunday after four days of persistent delays, DNE reports. “The airline decided to increase salaries by 10% to 12% as of July” said Khaled Rifaat, former Pilots Syndicate chief, in a televised statement on Saturday. Several meetings were held between the airline’s board and the Pilots Syndicate to come to an agreement after around 20 EgyptAir Boeing flights were delayed as a result of pressure from copilots demanding pay rates agreed upon in their contracts, we reported yesterday. “The salaries in EgyptAir, compared to other private and international companies, are very low,” an unnamed pilot told DNE.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is considering providing loans to 10-15 individual private developers for a total amount of up to USD 500 mn “to finance the construction and operation of renewable energy projects in Egypt under the feed-in-tariff programme.” The proposed focus of the projects is on the construction and operation of solar photovoltaic plants of 20-50 MW capacity. The names of the borrowers were not disclosed.

Alex Port multipurpose platform agreement with China Harbour back on: The cabinet economic group approved “in principle” a EGP 750 mn offer from China Harbour to build the multipurpose platform in the port of Alexandria, according to an email statement from the cabinet that only referred to the company as “a leading Chinese corporation.” The government will provide the company with a loan to cover 85% of the project, with the remainder being covered through a direct investment by the company. Differences over the funding funding structure for the project had led the Transportation Ministry to scrap the MoU with China Harbour back in March after talks broke down in January.

On a related note, the cabinet also agreed to provide a loan to whichever company is contracted to import 780 air conditioned railway cars, provided that part of the components for the cars are sourced in Egypt. The cabinet also approved tendering 10 mn sqm land in the industrial zones of four cities.

Six inmates have been sentenced to seven years in prison each for beating to death a detained French citizen in 2013, reported Ahram Online. Eric Lang, a 49-year-old French teacher, was detained at a police station for not having a valid visa, breaking curfew, and being drunk in public, according to AMAY. The prosecution’s case states six inmates in his cell had beaten him to death, but the defendant’s lawyer called the autopsy into question, which showed he had been beaten with a rod and electric cables, suggesting police involvement, according to France 24. Lang’s family has filed complaints against police officials over the death.

CORRECTION- Our piece yesterday on CIB’s 1Q2016 results incorrectly identified the results in the lede as being for the second quarter. The reporting period was correctly identified in the tl;dr section. Apparently, we didn’t learn much about the calendar in grade school. We regret the error.

It would be a “foolhardy” investor who believes all is now well in emerging markets after their more recent recovery, according to a piece on FT View. “Too much of the recovery seems to be owed to volatile factors, notably a rise in commodity prices and a debt-fuelled expansion in the first quarter in China, which could easily be reversed.” Serious structural reform, which would bolster a more long-term recovery, in emerging markets are “rare,” so when the “benign external environment” is removed or diminished, it “can lead to a marked slowing of economic growth and periodic turmoil in asset markets. The worst thing emerging markets could do is to repeat the complacency of the boom years and treat good luck as their due.”

Elsewhere, the FT is pretty sure that “EM recovery will not last, IIF data show.” The rally in EM, which began last quarter and continues in 2Q2016, isn’t real, says a top official at the Institute of International Finance: “What we have been seeing is a short-term cyclical rebound helped along by developed market central banks and by the People’s Bank of China. But the long-term structural headwinds are still there and getting stronger.” Unless, that is, we’re led out of the slump by “emerging market millennials” (folks born 1985-2000) who are set to do much better than their developed-market peers.

“Drag your attention away from the Middle East for a moment,” writes Julian Lee for Bloomberg Gadfly, because what we should turn our gazes to is Nigeria. “The country that was, until recently, Africa’s biggest crude producer is slipping back into chaos. A wave of [militant] attacks and accidents have hit infrastructure, taking Nigeria’s output down to 20-year lows.” But it’s not just the militants causing a headache, Exxon declared force majeure on Qua Iboe exports when a drilling platform ran aground and ruptured a pipeline, while “Shell did similar with Bonny Light exports after a leak from a pipeline feeding the terminal.” Oil research group Petromatrix puts Nigerian production at a little over 1 mn bpd, so “it won’t take much more disruption to tip the global oil balance from surplus to deficit.”

If your blood pressure is too low this morning, go read Roger Cohen’s “The Arab Withering.” It’s a couple of days old, and we weren’t going to mention it. After all, it’s lede reads thusly: “A little over five years ago I was with my colleague Robert F. Worth in Pierre Sioufi’s rambling apartment overlooking Tahrir Square in Cairo. Bearded members of the Muslim Brotherhood, their skin scarred by the torture of Mubarak’s security state, embraced secular Egyptian liberals and declared common cause. Young men and women…” But the thing has gotten a lot of reads, and it’s one of those pieces that drive us nuts: Not entirely wrong, despite its oversimplification, but the same pablum about intractable Mideast problems, the same stereotypes about what happened in 2011…

Egypt is “both leading the way and still well behind” when it comes to ecommerce, which, according to Payfort’s 2016 State of Payments report, is the “furnace” driving growth in the Middle East’s online economy,” Wamda writes. The report, which is set to officially be released online at the Ecommerce Middle East Show in Dubai at the end of the month, shows that until 2020, travel, events, and entertainment are “pushing forward” digital economies in Egypt, Saudi, and the UAE. In Egypt, the biggest improvements in refund rates were seen, “indicating consumers are more certain about their purchases whereas in Lebanon their purchases may be more impulsive.” But while its 90 mn people means Egypt is the largest source of online buyers, the group is small as a proportion of the population. “Men account for 78 percent of all transactions online; in the rest of the region it’s a bit more equitable, with UAE women leading the way making 40 percent of all transactions.”

Is Egypt’s former ruling party making a comeback? As Mubarak-era candidates currently have 124 seats, or about 21% of parliament, Al-Monitor asks if the NDP is on the cusp of return. Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University, told Al-Monitor: “The entire formation of the current parliament is loyal to President Sisi … Despite the absence of a partisan majority in the House of Representatives, its essence has returned to the old configuration with the same names, but with a different speaker and a different mechanism of action.” Meanwhile, the Free Egyptians’ Alaa Abed tells the website “in the absence of proof of involvement of former NDP [parliament members] in corruption cases, we cannot accuse them unjustly. It is their right to participate in political life.”

Human Rights Watch is calling on UAE authorities to drop all charges against an Emirati academic and a Jordanian journalist related to criticism of Emirati and Egyptian authorities, according to a release.

Italy’s Interior Ministry warns of a new refugee route to Europe from Egypt, CCTV reports. Although the number of refugees crossing the Mediterranean fell in recent weeks, many of those rescued from the Mediterranean are said to have taken a route passing through Egypt, sparking worry that the recent calm would not last very long.

As the British Museum gears-up for its 19 May opening of “Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds” — the museum’s first large-scale exhibition of underwater discoveries — the Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins travels to the Delta to meet the archaeologists behind the “secrets of ancient Naukratis”, which she details in Drowned worlds: Egypt’s lost cities.

Japan’s history in 9 minutes: This video came out last February, and is made with humanity’s rapidly deteriorating attention span firmly in mind. To its creator’s credit, it actually does an excellent job of describing Japan’s history in its entirety. (Watch)

Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has invited President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to attend the next Arab summit held in the capital of Nouakchott at the end of July, according to an Ittihadiya statement. Egypt and Mauritania signed six agreements and MoUs during Abdel Aziz’s visit to Cairo in April.

A delegation of Chinese textiles manufacturers will arrive in Egypt on 24 May to discuss moving forward with textiles investments and MoUs first agreed upon during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Cairo in January. These include Chinese textiles factory in Minya’s textiles city, Al Mal reports.

BP is taking credit for the news we reported on Thursday that the fast-tracked development of Nooros field achieved a production milestone “after facility debottlenecking and enhancing existing production facilities.” The production ramp up from the Nidoco North 1X exploration well and the Nidoco North West 4 development well in the field hit around around 65,000 boe/d. BP holds a 25% stake in the concession of Abu Madi West and Eni, through its subsidiary IEOC, holds 75%. (Read)

Petronas Egypt is not looking to borrow from banks to meet its financial obligations, a company source told Al Shorouk. The source said Petronas Egypt is self-funding its operations and is continuing its E&P operations in Egypt, which it began in 2003. (Read in Arabic)

The General Authority for Roads, Bridges, and Land Ports will issue a EGP 200 mn tender to build 18 gas stations on the Red Sea-Upper Egypt highway, said the authority’s Adel Turk. The Road Authority is in talks with the Petroleum Ministry to provide the fuel for the highway stations, added Turk. (Read in Arabic)

Orasqualia has reached an agreement with the CBE to reduce the foreign currency it would pay for completing upgrades to the Abu Rawash water treatment plant, said Atef Hanoura, head of the public-private partnership unit of the Finance Ministry. Under the original agreement, 70% of funding for the EGP 4.5 bn project would come from a syndicated loan, half of which would be in USD. The CBE had agreed to reduce this amount in exchange for Orasqualia increasing the Egypt-sourced components in the project, including machinery and equipment, Hanoura added. Orasqualia is a joint venture between Orascom Construction and Spain’s Aqualia. (Read in Arabic)

Environment Minister Khaled Fahmy met with sugar company heads to discuss their failures to meet environmental standards after data emerged that runoff water from their factories have been polluting the Nile, said Fahmy in a statement. This comes after attempts by the companies to amend their practices in accordance with environmental regulations, the statement read. The meeting, which included representatives from the ministries of irrigation and supply, reached a consensus that factories would hire independent academic consultants to help draw up strategies to minimize water pollution. (Read in Arabic)

The Supply Ministry has begun pulling boxes of bottled water from the shelves as a follow up precautionary measure to last week’s revelation that Pure Life, Aquafina, and Baraka water brands from plants in Beheira were not fit for human consumption, according to Al Mal. Around 1,500 boxes of water (presumably the 1.5 L bottles) were removed from stores and supermarkets in Sayeda Zeinab and Bab El Khalk. The Supply Ministry and the Health Ministry have vowed to intensify what they’re describing as their “crackdown” on the sale of contaminated water, said Hosny Zaky, head of the the Supply Ministry’s investigations unit. (Read in Arabic)

DETAC Construction is filing an arbitration case against DAMAC, calling for compensation of c. EGP 100 mn, Al Mal reported. DETAC says DAMAC has not paid it for works on its Park Avenue project. DETAC estimates it is owed EGP 85 mn in in overdue payments for the project and seeks the remainder as damages. (Read in Arabic)

The Planning Ministry preliminarily agreed to establish a company, in cooperation with the National Investment Bank, that will finance building the Continental Hotel in Downtown, sources from the Holding Company for Tourism told Amwal Al Ghad. The project has an investment cost of EGP 950 mn and an expected duration of three years. (Read in Arabic)

Mobile network operators have not yet expressed interest in obtaining 4G licences, a source at the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) told Al Shorouk. The source said the NTRA began gauging interest for 4G last Tuesday. On the other hand, Telecom Egypt has sent NTRA a letter saying it is seeking a 4G licence. (Read in Arabic)

The unemployment rate dropped to 12.7% in 1Q2016 from 12.8% in 4Q2015, CAPMAS announced. Youth unemployment, for the 15-29 age bracket, reached 27.3%. The largest percentage of employed individuals worked in the agriculture and fishery sectors, the CAPMAS report said, according to Daily News Egypt. (Read)

Controlled explosion in Old Trafford: A Premiership football game between Manchester United and Bournemouth was abandoned yesterday following a bomb threat. Two stands in Old Trafford stadium were evacuated and a controlled detonations of the suspected package took place.

A “small fire” broke out inside the Interior Ministry headquarters yesterday, Al Masry Al Youm reported. The fire broke out because of a problem with one of the air conditioning unit’s cables, a source said. Another fire broke out inside a chemistry lab in Cairo University yesterday, Daily News Egypt reported.

The market for household maintenance in Cairo could be worth USD 225-338 mn, the founder of Filkhedma told Wamda. Filkhedma is a startup founded in 2014 providing a marketplace connecting customers to providers of maintenance services, hiring out tradesmen qualified in plumbing, electrical work, carpentry and air conditioner maintenance.