“They’re Here…” IMF delegation lands in Egypt

They’re here: A staff delegation from the International Monetary Fund is in town for talks with senior government officials on an agreement for USD 12 bn assistance package. We have extensive coverage in Speed Round, below, that in volume reminds us of the last time the mainstream press remembered we had an economy — back around the time of the EEDC. (Gratuitous link to the infamous “They’re here…” scene in Poltergeist: watch, run time 0:18)

The script of the stage play “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child” is out in book format this morning, and the early reviews look promising: “It was generally gripping, and frequently surprising. It was also just a pleasure to see the old gang back together again,” writes the Guardian in a live blog. Amazon has the book for Kindle and in hardcover. It is, predictably, at the top of the Amazon bestseller list this morning.

The Egyptian Exchange will rebalance the EGX30 index on Monday, 1 August, removing Juhayna, Oriental Weavers, Crédit Agricole Egypt, South Valley Cement and United Arab Shipping and adding Egyptian Iron and Steel, Cairo Oils and Soap, Domty, Arabian Cement and Egypt Kuwait Holding, according to a statement from the exchange.

Hearings on the value-added tax continue at the House of Representatives Planning and Budget Committee on Tuesday, 2 August, Al Borsa reports. Representatives of the business community are due to attend.

The House Economic Committee will hold a special meeting this week on the FX crisis, with an eye to issuing recommendations to the government on how to tackle it, Al Masry Al Youm reports.

The Rio Olympics officially get underway on Friday, 5 August and wrap up on Sunday, 21, August.

Mobile network operators have until Sunday, 7 August to submit applications for 4G licences.

IMF delegation arrives; spokesman says size of facility is up for discussion: A delegation from the International Monetary Fund arrived in town on Saturday, according to officials at Cairo International Airport. The team landed just 48 hours after a fund official said the size of the package for Egypt would depend entirely on the outcome of the team’s two-week visit, according to Reuters. “The scale of IMF financing will depend on the mission team’s assessment during the visit of the financing needs and the strength of the authority’s reform program,” spokesman William Murray told a regular bi-weekly news briefing. He declined to comment on the Finance Ministry’s target of a three-year, USD 12 bn facility.

A little inside baseball: Murray said Egypt’s quota is about 2.08 bn Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), or about USD 2.9 bn, according to current rates. Under normal circumstances, IMF member countries can borrow up to 145% percent of their quota for any 12-month period, which would be about USD 4.2 bn for Egypt, or 435% over the 36-month program, which would be about USD 12.6 bn, according to IMF guidelines. (The IMF’s quota page, last updated on 29 July, 2016, actually puts Egypt’s SDRs at 2.0371 bn, or about USD 2.83 bn, meaning it can borrow USD 4.1 bn over 12 months or USD 12.3 bn over 36 months.)

Funding within 2-3 months? Finance Minister Amr El Garhy told Al Akhbar on Thursday that Egypt could expect to draw down the first tranche of the assistance package in about three months’ time. Deputy Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk said earlier on Thursday during a news conference that Egypt should receive at least USD 2 bn within two months of agreeing on a package, according to Reuters. The loan must be repaid within five years, plus a three-and-a-quarter year grace period, he said.

The IMF package isn’t the only card up our sleeves: El Garhy expects Egypt will receive the first tranche of the USD 3 bn World Bank loan inked late last year during the second quarter of the FY2016-17 fiscal year along. That’s October-December, roughly around when we should receive the second tranche of the African Development Bank (AfDB) facility, El Garhy is said to have told Al Akhbar. The minister also noted the funding hinges in part on the Housing passing the value-added tax legislation. Kouchouk added that the second tranche of its three-year, USD 1.5 bn loan to support the state budget in September. The release of the funds hinges on “eight reforms including in the energy, electricity, trade and industry sectors,” said Finance Ministry spokesman Ayman Al-Kaffas, adding: “There is a meeting of the board of directors [of the AfDB] in September… Hopefully we will get the approval and receive the second tranche,” he said. We had noted earlier this month that the AfDB meeting was supposed to take place in October.

Further, Egypt will begin this week the search for international institutions to arrange a USD 2-3 bn Eurobond in September or October, said Kouchouk. “If we implement the reform program, and get the IMF’s stamp of approval, our borrowing costs will drop," Kouchouk said, according to Bloomberg. “We’re creating the right conditions to go to the market.”

Meanwhile, officials are also going out of their way to explain to the public that borrowing from the IMF gives Egypt a “lower than market” interest rate, according to remarks by Finance Ministry spokesman Al-Kaffas. Al Shorouk quotes an unnamed official as saying the final figure should be in the 1.25-1.75% range.

IMF talks already impacting policy? Subsidy reform is also in the cards, with the long-awaited fuel smart cards slated for launch in FY2016-17, said Deputy Finance Ministers Kouchouk. This is the first deadline we’ve heard for the fuel smart cards since President Abdel Fattah El Sisi postponed their launch in May 2015. And regardless of the IMF package, Egypt is set to repay USD 7-8 bn in obligations due this fiscal year. You can watch part of Kouchouk’s interview with CNBC Arabia here (run time, 2:41), in which he summarises statements made during a press conference. The broadcaster doesn’t seem to have posted a full link as at dispatch time.

Subsidy cuts are back on the agenda. The Ismail government is serious about curbing fuel subsidies and repricing government services, a government source told Al Borsa last week. Fuel subsidies, in particular, are expected to be on the agenda during the IMF talks, the official added, and Cairo Metro riders could face rising ticket prices. While none of these policies are new, it’s the first serious talk of subsidy cuts since El Sisi hiked fuel prices in July 2015. A senior official at the Transport Ministry tells Al Shorouk the ministry has delayed plans to raise the price of Metro ticket, and the announcement of new electricity prices was postponed for two weeks, as we noted on Thursday. These new prices were supposed to come into effect for next power bill, but power companies have held off on that, as the Ismail cabinet is reviewing the pricing scheme, an Electricity Ministry source tells Al Borsa on Saturday.

The House of Representatives appears to backing the government’s move to IPO public-sector enterprises, with one MP telling Al Borsa that it is only a matter of time. The House committees on industry and economic affairs recently met with Investment Minister Dalia Khorshid and Public Sector Minister Ashraf El Sharkawy (who has in past publicly come out against the idea) to discuss obstacles to the listings. Discussions are no longer centered on “if” but “how,” the newspaper suggests. The Public Sector Companies Act must be amended, said the unnamed MP, and four state-owned companies are ready to float, El Sharkawy apparently told the House. Three state-owned banks could be on the auction block for partial privatization, and some MPs are reportedly in favour of selling minority stakes in one or more of them to a strategic investor. Banque du Caire is the only public bank to have been mentioned as a candidate for an IPO, although officials have previously said they were studying the sale of stakes in Arab African International Bank, United Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr. CBE Governor Tarek Amer stated back in January that two unnamed state-owned banks would IPO this year. Economics committee member Ashraf Al Araby tacitly linked the move to the IMF talks.

No gun to our head. No siree… The narrative from officialdom throughout the weekend and into this morning is that the reform agenda is 100% Made in Egypt. Tarek El Hosary, an advisor to the planning ministry, goes so far as to claim the passing of the Civil Service Act had nothing to do with the IMF talks. The nation’s ink-stained wretches are being slow to come on side: Al-Shorouk quotes a government official as noting that subsidy cuts and the repricing of state services are back on the agenda thanks to the IMF talks, and Rep. Ashraf Al Araby expressed concerns that the talks might lead the government to amend the House-approved reform agenda. Another unnamed government source (plenty of those talking to the media these days) tells Al Masry Al Youm that 14 conditions were indeed set by the IMF, some of which Egypt refused. Egypt’s biggest “No” so far: Refusing to fire 2 mn of the 5.5 mn bureaucrats presently on state payrolls.

Only reform will trigger investment: “With the IMF, reform will be a must … I hope so because otherwise even big businesses like ours would reach a point where cannot do business,” an unnamed executive at a multinational operating in Egypt told Reuters. “It is a total crisis now.” Fakhry Elfiky, an Egyptian economist and former IMF official tells the wire, adding, “Egypt must be assured that it has the support of the big five in the IMF, including the United States and Britain … this is politics … Egypt needs this loan. If we are rejected, it would be a collapse.”

But in general, the IMF news has been mostly positive for sentiment. Renaissance Capital says the “finalisation of an IMF deal would be key to turning the market” considering the loan’s conditionality as well as the prospects for an imminent devaluation, passage of the VAT law and subsidy cuts, RenCap’s Head of Equity Strategy Daniel Salter wrote in a research note sent to us on Thursday.

EFG Hermes’ Simon Kitchen is more cautiously optimistic, saying stocks will probably remain volatile for now since devaluation is likely only to follow the conclusion of IMF talks. “The medium-term path is clear: as claims on real assets (by and large), Egypt equities will rise in local currency terms as the currency devalues and inflation rises,” he wrote in a note released Thursday.

Is more tax reform in the works? President Abdel Fattah El Sisi discussed Egypt’s tax code with an eye on how to encourage investment, expand the nation’s tax base and reform the tax bureaucracy, Al Mal reports. In a meeting yesterday with Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Finance Minister Amr El Garhy, and Deputy Finance Ministers Amr El Monayer and Ahmed Kouchouk — the same day the IMF staff team arrived in town — discussions focused on the draft Settlement of Taxation Disputes Act, which aims to chip into an EGP 45 bn backlog of tax disputes, according to El Monayer. El Sisi was also briefed on legislation being drawn up to bring small businesses into the tax system, and the president called for the Tax Authority’s databases to be digitized. Last week, Suez Canal Economic Zone chief Ahmed Darwish had announced that El Sisi had “agreed in principle” that taxes in the SCZone ought to be reviewed from their current 22.5%, suggesting a return to incentives in economic zones.

The House Economics Committee wants the baseline rate for the value-added tax reduced below 14% before it approves it — and it will make that recommendation to the House, according to Rep. Talaat Khalil, a member of the sub-committee reviewing the VAT legislation. The committee will also recommend further goods and services be added to the exemption list, Al Mal reports. This could prove to be the first major hurdle to the government from the House on the VAT. The Economics Committee has not yet completed its review of the law, and is scheduled to hold hearings which will include industry representatives on Tuesday. Reducing the baseline tax was one of the many recommendations by the business community on the VAT.

The Central Bank of Egypt kept rates unchanged on Thursday, maintaining its overnight deposit rate at 11.75% and overnight lending rate at 12.75%, it said in a statement (Arabic, English pdf). Nine of 13 economists polled by Reuters called the hold last week.

The Arab Bank has capped monthly cash withdrawals for credit cards and purchases made using abroad on debit and credit cards at USD 750. Debit card holders will not be allowed to make cash withdrawals while abroad, Al Borsa reported. The move is an outgrowth of CBE instructions issued earlier this month.

The EGP strengthened even further against the greenback in the parallel market over the weekend, fluctuating between EGP 12.00-12.30 on Saturday, Al Mal reports. That’s down from EGP 12.80-13.00 at the start of last week and EGP 12.30-12.70 on Thursday, according to traders speaking to Reuters. Just don’t expect much in the way of liquidity: “Everyone is waiting for the central bank to lower the value of the pound. No one wants to buy or sell unless they have to,” one of the traders said.

Crackdown on FX bureau continues: The crackdown on the parallel market continued ton Thursday as investigators raided 10 exchanges in Cairo found to be trading at black-market rates, Reuters reports. Other bureaus in Alexandria and Cairo were also targeted for conducting business after their licenses were revoked. The official narrative is that the raids are stabilizing the parallel market, and banking sources say the crackdowns were led by security forces coordinating with the CBE. An FX trader tells AMAY that the government even threatened to shut down all exchanges for three months until the market is stabilized.

Hoarding USD gets you a ticket to hell (or at least points in your bad book): Even Al Azhar is joining in the effort to curb the parallel market for FX, declaring the hoarding of foreign exchange to profit on a trade is a sin, Al Borsa reports.

Genena slapped with jail time: Former head of the Central Auditing Authority Hesham Genena was sentenced on Thursday to one year in jail, the AP reported. The judge also fined him EGP 20,000 which, if paid along with an additional EGP 10,000, could allow Genena to avoid incarceration. His lawyer told Reuters he would pay the fines but appeal the verdict.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund has backed a USD 177.5 mn wind and solar power programme in Africa, the Financial Times (paywall) and Bloomberg report. The funds will help finance Lekela Power to build 1.3 GW in carbon-free generating capacity in Africa by 2018. Lekela Power has plans for both wind and solar projects in Egypt, as well as South Africa, Ghana and Senegal. This marks the fund’s biggest move into green energy since it announced it was divesting from the fossil-fuel industry.

The House committee tasked with investigating allegations of fraud in this year’s wheat harvest has tallied EGP 1.2 bn in wheat that’s missing or that never existed in the first place, Al Borsa reports. As we had reported earlier, the inspection committee found that 4% of the 5 mn tonnes of local wheat allegedly purchased by the state is missing from silos. The committee also postponed the release of its report on the investigation by 10 days, after it was scheduled to be released today, Al Mal reports. The committee is continuing to gather evidence and it in the process of compiling the report.

The committee also plans to recommend charges of dereliction of duty and contempt be filed against Health Minister Ahmed Rady for allegedly refusing to test samples of wheat sent to him by the committee, said Amr.

The Civil Service Act’s executive regulations are expected to be issued a month after the law comes into effect, advisor to the Planning Minister Tarek El Hosary said, Youm7 reports. A “national dialogue” will precede issuing the executive regulations, he added. The act was approved by the House, we noted last week. It is now being reviewed by the State Council, after which it will go back to the House, which will then send it to Ittihadiya for implementation.

MOVES – Rania Al Mashat, the CBE’s sub-governor for monetary policy, will assume her new job as advisor to the IMF’s chief economist tomorrow on a three-year contract, Al Borsa reported. She had been working at the CBE for 11 years. We had reported the news of her appointment in May.

MOVES- Alexbank approved the appointment of Omar ElSayeh as its non-executive chairman, according to a bank statement. ElSayeh was non-executive chairman at Barclays Bank Egypt from 2007 to 2013 after having spent 20 years at Citigroup.

MOVES- Vodafone Egypt’s CEO has a new boss: The appointment of a new CEO for Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific (AMAP) is getting attention from the domestic press. Vodafone Group appointed Vivek Badrinath as Chief Executive for the Group’s Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific region in an announcement on Friday. Badrinath joins Vodafone from AccorHotels and assumes his post on 15 October. Al Borsa has picked up the release in Arabic.

Tunisia’s parliament passed a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Habib Essid yesterday, “effectively disbanding the government,” the Associated Press reports, noting: “Mr. Essid, who had been in office less than two years, said he would do his best to make sure the transition to the new government was peaceful.”

‘How slow is US economic growth? ‘Close to zero’’ The US Bureau of Economic Analysis released its quarterly GDP report on Friday, showing 2Q16 real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 1.2%, with 1Q16 real GDP revised downwards to just 0.8%. “We’re tired of talking about rate hikes when it’s not going to happen for a while,” Diane Swonk of US Economics said to CNBC. “I really think the Fed is sidelined until the end of the year.”

The global narrative on Egypt this morning: Coverage of Egypt’s bid for a USD 12 bn assistance package from the International Monetary Fund is the lead story on Egypt in the global press this morning, with a piece by the Associated Press’ Brian Rohan getting very wide pickup on an otherwise quiet weekend for Omm El Donia. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal (among many others) took note of the one-year sentence handed Hesham Genena on charges he “spread false news” and the New York Times reviews Uri Bar-Joseph’s biography of Ashraf Marwan

With talk bubbling once more of the conditions under which some measure of reconciliation with the Ikhwan may be possible, Eric Trager takes down Shadi Hamid’s “Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World” concluding in a review for the Wall Street Journal: “Unfortunately, the Brotherhood hasn’t learned from its errors. Brotherhood leader Amr Darrag tells the author that the group’s biggest mistake was “trying to fix the system from inside gradually,” and a Brotherhood youth says that Morsi should have “purified” the state institutions and media. In other words, if the Brotherhood gets another chance, it will work even harder and faster to exclude competitors.”

Egypt ready to hand Moscow findings on Metrojet: Egyptian authorities are ready to hand Moscow the latest findings on Cairo’s investigation into the Metrojet crash, spokesman of the Russian prosecutor general’s office Alexander Kurennoi told Russia’s TASS news on Wednesday. Egypt and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday between both sides’ prosecutor general offices to intensify and speed up the investigation, according to Sputnik. Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy and public prosecutor Nabil Sadek flew to Moscow on Tuesday for talks.

The BBC has picked up on the arrest of FGM doctor Raslan Fadl, who was sentenced in January 2015 over the death of 13-year-old Souheir Al Bataa. Fadl, who surrendered after pressure from domestic and international campaigners, had avoided serving a two-year sentence by reaching an agreement with the girl’s family and has continued practising intermittently after the conviction, according to campaign groups Equality Now and the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance.

…Earlier this month, BBC ran an episode of The Inquiry titled “Why can’t Egypt stop FGM?” which reaches the grim conclusion “perhaps the simplest answer [to why Egypt can’t stop FGM] is … because not enough Egyptians want to.” (Run time 22:59)

ICYMI: Aside from US First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech, the second-most satisfying speaker at the event was clearly Michael Bloomberg. “Let’s elect a sane, competent person.” (Watch, running time: 11:57)

A delegation from the UK House of Commons, led by MP Gerald Howarth, concluded its visit to Egypt on Saturday, having met with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the House of Representatives and the interior minister, Ahram Online reported. The delegation also paid a visit to Sharm El Sheikh on Thursday, though no announcements were made on when a resumption of British flights to the beleaguered resort would commence. The delegation did indicate that the British government looked forward to cooperating on airport security, according to a statement by the interior ministry cited by Ahram Online.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed improving relations with Egypt on Thursday, during an event commemorating Egypt’s 1952 revolution held at Egyptian Ambassador Hazem Khairat’s residence, Reuters reported. “I want to thank President al-Sisi for his leadership and for his efforts to advance peace between Israel and the Palestinians and in the broader Middle East. We welcome the effort to incorporate other Arab states in this larger effort of a broader peace between all the people of the Middle East,” Netanyahu said in a speech at the event.

Egypt has not received a request for political asylum from Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, said Prime Minister Sherif Ismail on Wednesday, Reuters reports. Egypt would study such a request if it was made, Ismail added. Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozda seemed to imply that Gülen has left the United States, according to a report by Russian state news agency TASS,though this claim does not appear to have been repeated elsewhere. “We have no information about Gulen’s links with Egypt but we know that he could have left for a number of other countries,” Bozda said. Meanwhile, Egypt’s Conservative Party urged the government to consider granting political asylum to Gülen should he submit an official request, Ahram Online reported.

Egypt is hosting “high-profile talks” with Libya’s top officials “aimed at resolving the war-ravaged country’s political deadlock,” unnamed officials said Thursday, according to the AP. The Cairo-based talks are largely centered around who will command the Libyan army and what the “portfolio of the defense minister will entail,” according to Abdel-Basit bin Hamel, a Libyan journalist with ties to the officials.

The Electricity Ministry is adamant about domestic arbitration, with New and Renewable Energy Authority chief Mohamed El Sobky saying the clause has been on table for investors from the beginning. It is not, he said, an amendment as the investors make it out to seem. While he expressed sympathy that investors cannot get funding as a result of the issue, El Sobky stated that it was not the government’s responsibility. He tells Al Shorouk that it is the government’s job to ensure a stellar investment climate. He also points to how some investors have accepted domestic arbitration and were indeed successful at finding financing. He expects financing for phase one to reach USD 14 bn.

Terra Sola Chairman David Heimhofer is looking to build a solar power plant and to manufacture plant components in cooperation with the ministries of power and military production, he said at a meeting with Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, according to Ahram Gate. The value of the agreement was not specified. Terra Sola signed in March 2015 a USD 3.5 bn MoU with the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company to develop a 2GW solar project.

Eni and BP have set a target of 350 mcf/d of natural gas from the South Baltim field by the end of the current fiscal year, while production will be linked to the national grid by 2H2017, Daily News Egypt reported on Saturday. As we had noted earlier, Eni and BP will target drilling six wells as part of Baltim South development lease in the East Nile Delta in the current fiscal year. The Baltim reserves were estimated at 700 bcf of recoverable gas.

South Korea will begin a feasibility study to develop Alexandria Port, the South Korean Maritime Affairs Ministry said Wednesday, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and South Korean President Park Geun-hye signed an MoU for the redevelopment of the port in March during El Sisi’s visit to Seoul.

State grain buyer General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) bought 120k tonnes of Russian and Romanian wheat in a tender, according to GASC on Thursday, Business Recorder reported, at an average price of USD 177.17 per tonne cost and freight. GASC had received 10 offers in its wheat tender on Thursday, Reuters quoted traders as saying, with the lowest offer coming in at USD 165 per tonne for 55k tonnes of Ukrainian wheat from Venus. France was absent from after heavy flooding this year lead to a poor harvest. A statement from the Supply Ministry on Friday stated that Egypt’s strategic reserves of wheat will last until early February 2017, AMAY reports.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi will inaugurate its USD 1.9 bn petrochemicals complex at the at Egyptian Ethylene and Derivatives Company (Ethydco) in Alexandria within days, Amwal Al Ghad reports. The mega-project aims to save Egypt around USD 500 mn in ethylene imports, and cover between 40-45% of domestic market demand. As we had reported earlier, Ethydco has successfully tested its 460k-tonnes annual capacity ethylene factory, as well as its 400k tonnes capacity polyethylene factory.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is looking to expand in Egypt, company officials said in a meeting with Trade and Industry Minister Tarek Kabil, Al Ahram reported. The company, which last week said it had opened a subsidiary in Egypt, is interested in additional work on shipyards, power plants and industrial projects.

El Reda for Investment and Commercial Development, which produces cotton, syringes and medical bandages, is opening a syringe line in a partnership with an unnamed Indian firm, El Reda’s chairman told Al Mal.

Marsa Matrouh’s governor signed agreements worth EGP 70 bn for 14 tourism, agriculture, industry and services projects with Saudi, Emirati and Egyptian companies, Al Shorouk reported. The projects cover a tourist resort, agriculture, a water purification and bottling project, as well as a water park and, separately, water treatment plants.

Etisalat Misr’s revenues for 2Q16 were AED 1.1 bn (USD 300 mn), a 3% decrease y-o-y due “mainly due [to] unfavourable exchange rate movements of [EGP] against AED as growth in local currency was 12%,” according to Etisalat Group’s earnings report (pdf), with 2Q16 EBITDA standing at AED 500 mn. Etisalat Misr’s net profits were estimated at EGP 540 in 2Q16, a 200% increase compared to 1Q16, Al Borsa reported. Etisalat Group’s consolidated net profit after Federal Royalty was worth AED 2.3 bn (USD 630 mn) in 2Q16, an increase y-o-y by 51%. So much for the world ending on the back of low oil prices, huh?

Banque Misr issued two loans worth a combined EGP 300 mn to an unnamed food industries company in Alexandria, and an unnamed sugar manufacturing and packaging company in Cairo, divided evenly between the two, sources tell Al Borsa. The funding will be issued in one go in the form of a three-year loan, the source added. The food industries company will use the funding to grow its production lines through purchasing new equipment, while the sugar company will grow its distribution outlets and add production lines.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi met on Thursday with Coptic Pope Tawadros II, stressing that “all Egyptians are equal in their rights and duties in accordance with the constitution,” Ahram Online said, picking up a statement from Ittihadiya. The two met after a string of attacks on Christians in Upper Egypt over the past month,

Tweet of the year: @AdamWeinstein: “Exclusive video of Paul Manafort [Trump’s campaign manager] and his rapid response team right now,” (Watch, running time: 23 seconds)

Phones with digital projectors: Motorola, which has not made an interesting phone product in about ten years or so (with the possible exception of the 2013 Moto X) may finally be onto something with their Moto Mods — peripherals that snap on to the back of the phone adding extra functionality, like their Insta-Share Projector retailing at USD 300. Competitors have taken alternate routes, with Akyumen’s Holofone boasting a built-in projector that the company claims can project up to a 100-inch screen. Even Motorola’s commercial for its Moto Mod projector is inventive, demonstrating its usefulness when attempting to escape zombies. Keep an eye out for the zombie trying to skip an ad. (Watch, running time: 1:02)