AM — The Aldar / ADQ bid for upmarket developer SODIC is going through

It’s one heck of a busy news day today, wonderful people, so let’s jump right in and get this show on the road:

THE BIG STORY OF THE DAY- Aldar Properties and ADQ’s mandatory tender offer for up to 90% of upmarket real estate developer SODIC is going through after blowing past the 51% minimum subscription threshold for the acquisition to go through. SODIC subscribers have until the end of trading today to respond to the MTO.

A US-UAE consortium is going to turn our Temple of Bureaucracy into a multipurpose attraction that will anchor the heart of Downtown Cairo. The good people at the Sovereign Fund of Egypt announced the partnership yesterday.

And solid lobbying by industry participants seems to have put the state’s sale of a new tobacco license back on the front burner.

We have more on all three stories in today’s news well, below.

ALSO- It feels a lot like diplomats have taken a Hot Tub Time Machine to some twisted alternate-reality version of 1984. Consider this:

• Washington is (kinda-sorta) boycotting the Beijing Olympics;
• The UAE and Iran are edging toward restoring ties;
• And Amreeka is getting edgy as China looks to project power into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.

Oh, and Joe Biden is picking up the red phone to try to de-escalate with Vladimir Putin as old Cold War tensions flare. The FT wants you to know that “Western leaders are presenting a united front” as Biden is expected to threaten Putin with sanctions if Russia were to (further) invade Ukraine.

MEANWHILE- Have we reached peak 2021? A story in Fortune magazine suggests as much: This artist is auctioning off one of her eggs through an NFT. The creep factor is strong in this one.

Your daily reminder that technical analysis = the reading of sheep’s entrails, from a technical analysis guy with a sense of ha-ha.

PSA- We could be in for some gnarly weather, with wind and possibly rain sweeping Alexandria today and the capital city tomorrow. Our favourite weather app and the national weather service are both on the same page here. Check out Last Night’s Talk Shows (below) for more.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY-

The two-day North Africa Trade Finance Summit starts today, bringing together business leaders, people from the financial industry, logistics experts and policymakers to discuss trade finance.

THIS WEEK-

Inflation figures for November will be released this Thursday, 9 December. Urban inflation slipped slightly to 6.3% in October from 6.6% the month before, which was the highest reading since January 2020. The dip resulted from a serious slowdown in non-food inflation, though food and beverage prices continued to accelerate.

Renaissance Capital expects the trend to continue, writing in a research note yesterday that it is forecasting inflation to fall to 5.8% by the end of the year. Food price inflation, which has been rising for much of this year climbing to 11.6% y-o-y in October, will have started to abate in November, according to RenCap, which is penciling a 2022 year-end inflation rate of 5.2%.

That puts the focus squarely on the CBE’s final policy meeting of the year, which will take place on 16 December. Policymakers have held off lowering interest rates further this year and will continue to remain reluctant to do so next week in the face of Egypt’s current account deficit, RenCap says. The current account deficit widened by almost two thirds during FY 2020-2021 to USD 18.4 bn due to falling tourism revenues and rising imports. RenCap is expecting it to narrow to 4.0% of GDP during the current FY from 4.8% in 2020-2021.

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

Global Forum for Higher Education and Scientific Research runs tomorrow through to Friday at the St. Regis Al Masa Convention Center.

The Cairo Woodshow kicks off on Thursday at the Cairo International Convention Center

Booster shot registration: The Health Ministry will begin allowing senior citizens with chronic medical conditions, as well as all medical staff, to register for a booster covid-19 vaccine as of next Sunday, 12 December.

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

*** It’s Going Green day — your weekly briefing of all things green in Egypt: Enterprise’s green economy vertical focuses each Tuesday on the business of renewable energy and sustainable practices in Egypt, everything from solar and wind energy through to water, waste management, sustainable building practices and how you can make your business greener, whatever the sector.

In today’s issue: With plenty of natural attractions across the country, ecotourism has been picking up in Egypt, particularly as the government has incorporated ecotourism into its broader tourism revival strategy. Today, we look at the state of the country’s ecotourism industry and what’s being done to support and encourage sustainable travel.

The Aldar / ADQ takeover of SODIC is going through: SODIC shareholders have so far agreed to sell shares equivalent to a 77.26% stake (275.2 mn shares) in the company to a consortium of real estate giant Aldar Properties and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ in a mandatory tender offer, CI Capital, which is advising Aldar and ADQ, confirmed to Enterprise last night.

What’s next? The 10-day subscription period for the MTO ends at the end of trading today, but the Emirati consortium’s MTO is effectively in the clear after passing the 51% minimum threshold for the agreement to go through. Aldar and ADQ are looking to acquire up to 90% of SODIC, meaning shareholders in the upmarket real estate developer can still sell shares equivalent to as much as 12.7% of the company before today’s closing bell.

It’s still unclear whether a group that is presently SODIC’s largest shareholder is among the sellers. A consortium of Act Financial, Hassan Allam Properties and Concrete Plus Engineering together make up SODIC’s single-largest shareholder with a 15% stake in the company. A top exec at one of the companies declined to comment.

The terms of the sale: The Emirati consortium — which is 70% owned by Al Dar and 30% owned by ADQ — is paying EGP 20 per share in an all-cash transaction, valuing SODIC at around EGP 7.1 bn (USD 452 mn). The company’s board called on shareholders last month to accept the offer despite it being priced almost 20% below the EGP 23.42 share the upmarket developer’s financial advisor BDO had suggested in its fair value study.

SODIC’s shares closed at EGP 19.75 each yesterday, rising from EGP 19.60 last week but remaining flat during yesterday’s trading, according to market data. The company’s shares have traded as low as EGP 14.02 and as high as EGP 19.89 in the past 52 weeks, according to Reuters data, meaning the MTO is at a premium to SODIC’s average share price in the past year.

Just what the nation’s real estate industry needs? Aldar is a proven, well-capitalized player in the UAE’s hyper-competitive real estate market and will bring to the Egyptian industry a set of skills and operating playbook that we expect will see many participants up their games. The transaction is also great news for foreign direct investment, underscoring to would-be strategics that it’s possible to efficiently enter a key industry here.

Background: The consortium had presented its takeover offer back in September, when it initially tabled EGP 18-19 per share, which would have valued SODIC at EGP 6.6 bn. The Financial Regulatory Authority approved the bid last month, kicking off the 10-day subscription window from 24 November.

US-led consortium tapped for Mogamma overhaul: A consortium of US-based Global Ventures and Oxford Capital together with the UAE’s Al Otaiba Investment signed yesterday a EGP 3.5 bn (c.USD 200 mn) contract to redevelop Tahrir Square’s Mogamma yesterday with the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) and the Planning Ministry, the Madbouly cabinet said in a statement. The consortium had put forth the best technical and financial offer in the tender to revamp the Mogamma, and has prior experience with renovating historic buildings in the US and Europe, cabinet said. (Global Ventures is of zero relation to the high-profile venture capital outfit of the same name.)

The group will develop and manage the complex that was previously the physical home and literal embodiment of Egypt’s state bureaucracy. The contract sets up a partnership between the consortium and the SFE and will see the consortium manage the development of the complex and operate it once complete, the group said (pdf). The iconic downtown Cairo building is set to be transformed into a multi-purpose attraction with an apartment hotel as well as commercial and office spaces.

Where’s the financing coming from? The announcement was silent on how the Global Ventures-Oxford-Otaiba group plans to finance what it said will be an investment “in excess of USD 200 mn” in the project.

The process is expected to wrap within 24 months of the development work actually beginning, Planning Minister Hala El Said told Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 19:44), confirming the timeline previously laid out by SFE CEO Ayman Soliman.

Weren’t we about to choose Arab partners for the gig? The government had been looking at four shortlisted bids submitted by consortiums of local and Arab companies as of September, Planning Minister Hala El Said had said at the time. Since then, the decision — which was initially meant to be announced that month — was delayed a handful of times.

Advisors: Alliance Law Firm acted provided legal advice to the US consortium while Adsero – Ragy Soliman & Partners acted as counsel to the SFE. Colliers International conducted the market study to help advise the decision.

ALSO COMING UP- The redevelopment of Mubarak HQ: Five different consortiums want to get involved in the redevelopment of the site of the former National Democratic Party headquarters, which will likely become home to a hotel, commercial, and residential project overlooking the Nile, Soliman said at the signing ceremony yesterday, according to Bloomberg Asharq. The tender for the project will be issued “within weeks,” likely after the end of the winter holiday season, El Said told El Hekaya’s Amr Adib (watch, runtime: 1:31). The SFE also plans to launch a tender to repurpose the Interior Ministry building in downtown, which could be used as a campus for an unspecified French postgraduate university, alongside a startup incubator, according to the minister.

Bringing a new tobacco competitor into the market, take three: The Industrial Development Authority (IDA) has relaunched a tender for a license to manufacture cigarettes, potentially ending the historical monopoly by state-owned Eastern Company, Masrawy reports. The license would allow for the establishment of Egypt’s second major tobacco company, entering a space that is currently occupied entirely by Eastern.

Who’s biting? As of yesterday, none of the four tobacco companies with local operations — Philip Morris, JTI-Nakhla Tobacco, British American Tobacco Egypt, and Al Mansour International Distribution Company — had purchased the booklet, Federation of Egyptian Industries’ (FEI) cigarettes division Head Ibrahim Embaby told Enterprise. British Tobacco intends to take out the booklet within the next couple of days, a company representative told us. The IDA has set this coming Thursday as the deadline for companies interested in the license to purchase the conditions booklet for the tender, which outlines the revised terms for the license. The IDA will review offers on 23 January.

What’s different this time around? Nobody really knows. JTI-Nakhla, British American Tobacco, and Al Mansour had previously requested, among other things, that the tender should only cover traditional tobacco products (rather than also including e-cigarettes and heated tobacco). The companies had also complained about tender terms that would protect Eastern’s market share, suggesting that any new market entrant wouldn’t be given a fighting chance. It’s currently unclear whether, or how, the new tender addressed these concerns. The tender may have been re-issued without any changes at all, Embaby suggested in comments to Masrawy. It’s also unclear why the IDA decided to issue a fresh tender, rather than opting to amend the terms of the original tender booklet, the British Tobacco representative told us.

So what changed? Good lobbying, we suspect, including a visit to Egypt in early November by a senior delegation from BAT to discuss with government officials “the company's ambitious strategy and plan to achieve an impactful change in tobacco and nicotine products.” The company issued a statement (pdf) that was heavy on the praise for the government’s management of the economy and investment environment — and called on the government to “issue multiple new manufacturing licenses for traditional cigarettes and new products separately.” BAT played up its GBP 20 mn investment in heated tobacco here this year and noted that it has “provided more than 1k jobs.”

Background: First introduced in March, the tender has been the subject of much drama, receiving strong backlash from several tobacco players who argued that the terms of the license would create an e-cigarette monopoly and provide preferential treatment to Eastern Company. Under the first tender, the new market entrant would have had to price its products 50% higher than Eastern, and allow the state company to own a 24% stake.

The government then conceded and redrafted the license terms, but companies were still unhappy with what they said were unfair conditions. Tobacco giant Philip Morris was the only company to take part in the bidding round for the new license in August, while the three other tobacco companies filed grievance letters to the Madbouly cabinet and requested a deadline extension until 1 December.

Edita Food Industries has started operations at its new production facility in Morocco, the company announced in a statement (pdf) on Sunday. The plant is the company’s first greenfield investment outside of Egypt and makes the company’s transformation into a manufacturer that exports to a host of regional markets into a true multinational with offshore operations.

The EGP 200 mn plant currently has one production line that produces 2.7k tons of HoHos cakes every year. This will increase in the future with the addition of another two production lines.

The facility “significantly strengthens the company’s exposure” to the c. USD 100 mn Moroccan cake market, of which it aims to capture a “strong share,” Edita said.

The factory is operated by Edita Food Industries Morocco, a joint venture set up between Edita and Moroccan FMCG distributor Dislog Group. Edita holds a 76% stake in the company and Dislog holds 20%.

IN OTHER INVESTMENT NEWS-

Digital transformation, cloud, and cybersecurity services company Softline will increase its investments in Egypt following a series of meetings with GAFI, the CIT Ministry and ITIDA, the company announced in a press release (pdf) yesterday. The company didn’t specify how much it would be investing. In December of last year, Softline selected Egypt as its Middle East hub following its re-entry to the Egyptian market.

Elsewedy Electric inaugurates Tanzania industrial park: Elsewedy Electric opened a USD 35 mn electric cable factory in Tanzania yesterday, the company announced in a bourse filing (pdf), marking the start of the first phase of its Kigamboni industrial complex. Located near the country’s capital, the first phase of the park will include several factories for cables, wires, transformers, meters and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), as well as a 4.8k sqm logistics center, it said.​​

The industrial park aims to attract over USD 400 mn worth of investments from over 100 investors across the region, the company said in an emailed statement. It will span 2.2 mn sqm and will include chemical, engineering and mining plants, as well as a technical training academy. The park is being built by Elsewedy Electric’s subsidiary, Elsewedy Industrial Development.

It’s not clear how much Elsewedy will invest in the project, as the company didn’t disclose figures in the statement. Business Insider Africa reported last month that USD 200 mn will be spent on infrastructure for the first phase. The company declined to comment on the subject when approached by Enterprise.

This is not the company’s first rodeo in Tanzania: Elsewedy Electric and Arab Contractors were awarded the USD 2.9 bn contract to construct the country’s Julius Nyerere hydropower dam, a megaproject that will produce more than 2 GW of electricity when operational.

Elsewedy Electric has been increasing its African footprint in recent months. The company signed a USD 16.7 mn EPC contract to build a substation for Ghana’s state-owned electricity company, to be delivered within a two-year period.

Orascom Construction’s (OC) board of directors has approved an interim dividend payout of USD 0.2313 per share, the company said in an EGX filing (pdf) yesterday. Investors holding shares listed on the Nasdaq Dubai will receive the payment in USD, while those holding shares on the EGX will receive the payment in the EGP equivalent.

This marks the company's fifth dividend payment to shareholders since 2018. The payout will be distributed on 31 January, bringing the dual-listed company’s total dividends in FY 2021 to USD 0.4626 per share.

IN OTHER NEWS FROM OC- The company is planning to acquire an equipment distribution and services business owned by the Sawiris family for USD 35 mn in an all-cash transaction, according to a statement (pdf) yesterday. OC announced in October that it was looking at acquiring up to 100% (pdf) of the company, and appointed HLB for Financial Consultancies on Securities to conduct a fair value study.

The business: The target company owns three separate businesses active in equipment import, distribution and maintenance: Orascom Trading, Orascom Freezone and National Equipment Company. The company is the sole agent for more than 45 original equipment manufacturers in Egypt, including Grove, John Deere, Volvo Penta, Hitachi, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It is owned by the Sawiris family but is legally separate from OC.

The next steps: Shareholders who will be asked to approve the transaction at an extraordinary general meeting on 27 December. Shareholders who are members of the Sawiris family will abstain from voting, as will two board members.

The news comes as the company has reported solid earnings growth in 2021: OC last month reported (pdf) net income of USD 76.1 mn during the first nine months of the year, up 17% from 2020, as well as a pick-up in backlog and new awards, which were boosted by the contract for the construction of Egypt’s first high-speed rail system. The latest payout means OC will distribute USD 51.5 mn in dividends this year.

The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) will sign 3-4 green hydrogen production projects in the upcoming period, SFE CEO Ayman Soliman said yesterday, without disclosing further details, Bloomberg Asharq reported. Our first-ever green hydrogen facility is currently being built in Ain Sokhna by a consortium comprising Norway’s Scatec, Orascom Construction, Nassif Sawiris-backed Fertiglobe, and the SFE. Other companies are reportedly interested in setting up hydrogen facilities in Egypt, including Siemens, Eni, General Electric and ThyssenKrupp.

Food ordering app Talabat has tapped Mohamed Sekkina (LinkedIn) as the new general manager of its grocery delivery service, Talabat Mart, reports Al Mal. Sekkina led the launch of Talabat Mart in Egypt and Oman in 2020, and headed the platform’s business operations in the UAE. Sekkina has been serving as interim country manager for the past 5-6 months.

Mogamma overhaul gets star treatment: The Sovereign Fund of Egypt signing contracts with a US consortium to develop and manage downtown Cairo’s Mogamma complex was at the top of the talking heads’ agendas last night, with coverage from El Hekaya’s Amr Adib (watch, runtime: 4:47), Ala Mas’ouleety’s Ahmed Moussa (watch, runtime: 5:08), and Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 0:34). We have the story in full in this morning’s news well, above.

Meanwhile, an expected bout of bad weather over the next couple of days also earned airtime. We might be getting a full-blown storm on the back of strong winds and dust, coupled with potential rainfall today and tomorrow, director of the Egyptian Meteorological Authority’s forecasting center Mahmoud Shahin told Adib. Rainfall is expected in the country’s northwestern region first today before hitting Alexandria, parts of the east coast, and Cairo tomorrow, according to Shaheen (watch, runtime: 2:34). Moussa also discussed the weather forecast with the forecasting center’s undersecretary, Iman Shaker (watch, runtime: 20:25).

Also: The Administrative Control Authority arrested yesterday a former secretary-general of the Cairo governorate on charges of graft that led to EGP 76 mn in foregone state revenues, Moussa reported (watch, runtime: 32:12).

It’s a cops ‘n crime kind of morning of Egypt in the international press — in the old-fashioned, 1960s use of the word. The Associated Press says a building collapse that killed three siblings in Beni Suef is “common in Egypt.” Asharq Al Awsat also picked up the news. Reuters, meanwhile, is out with a story headlined “in conservative Egypt, women seek low-cost ways to 'prove' [they haven’t engaged in premarital relations].”

(We’re not being prudes about the word — it’s one of the many that prompt the algorithms to send our email to your bad folders if we mention it.)

Egypt plans to debut “the world’s largest spinning and weaving factory” in Mahalla Al Kobra next year, with trial operations set to begin next April, Public Enterprises Minister Hisham Tawfik said. Several spinning and weaving factories are set to start production before the end of 2022, according to the minister, as part of the government’s EGP 21 bn plan to overhaul the industry.

Kent College West Cairo partnered (pdf) with Beltone Consumer Finance (Belcash) to offer financing for tuition.

NTRA is pouring EGP 513 mn in Sinai: The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) is spending EGP 513 mn to increase the efficiency of basic telecommunications services in Sinai.

Funeral prayers can now be performed at “major” mosques, after the newly-formed pandemic and epidemic management committee approved the Awqaf Ministry’s request to remove the ban on the prayers in its first ever meeting, cabinet announced in a statement. The committee was formed under a new law handing the prime minister extraordinary powers to respond to pandemics and public health crises.

The Health Ministry reported 871 new covid-19 infections yesterday, down from 902 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 364,033 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 43 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 20,770.

Russia and Egypt have kicked off joint military exercises — dubbed Friendship Bridge Four — in the eastern Mediterranean yesterday, the Armed Forces said in a statement.

Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met with Senegalese President Macky Sall yesterday on the sidelines of his visit for the Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security. Shoukry delivered a message from President Abdel Fattah El Sisi suggesting ways to strengthen bilateral relations between the countries, according to a ministry statement.

The UAE and Iran work to restore ties: The UAE’s national security chief held talks with the Iranian president in Tehran yesterday in the first official visit by an Emirati official to the country in almost 10 years. Ali Shamkani, Tehran’s top national security official, said Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed’s visit could open “a new chapter” in bilateral ties. This comes less than two weeks after the UAE took a large step to repairing ties with Turkey, in a visit during which the two signed agreements for bns of USD of investments. (Financial Times)

US government boycotts Beijing Olympics: The Biden administration will not be sending any government officials to the February 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, US Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a briefing yesterday. China earlier threatened to retaliate should the US implement the “diplomatic boycott,” which aims to pressure the country over human rights abuses. Canada has also said it is considering a boycott, but has yet to make a decision.

Chinese military power is reaching the Atlantic, and the US isn’t happy: China is looking to establish its first permanent military base on Africa’s Atlantic Coast in Equatorial Guinea, triggering concern in Washington which is now trying to persuade the country’s president to reject the proposal. (Wall Street Journal)