AM — Take our fall 2022 reader poll

Good morning, nice people.

IT’S A BIG DAY FOR… all of us here at Enterprise. Our first issue of Enterprise Climate went live a couple of hours ago. Readers of Enterprise Egypt will be getting copies for the coming week or two — and you can find us online at climate.enterprise.press. We’d love to know what you think — reply to the issue or email me directly on patrick@enterprisemea.com.

Enterprise Climate is the essential Middle East and North Africa publication for senior execs who work in or care about what we think is fast becoming the world’s largest and most significant industry.

Longtime readers know we’ve been passionate about climate since we started publishing in 2014. It’s an industry that cuts across all of the others, from banking and finance to infrastructure, real estate, transport, construction, FMCG, urban planning, professional services and more. Look for us in your inboxes at 4am CLT / 5am KSA / 6am UAE, Monday through Thursday.

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Take our Fall Reader Survey today and we’ll have the results for you in a couple of weeks — just in time to give you a sense of what everyone else is thinking heading into budget season.

How has 2022 been for your business? And how do you feel about what’s left of the year? Are you investing? Do you plan to hire new staff (or make cuts to your existing staff) now or in 2023? What’s the USD / EGP rate you expect to use for your 2023 budget? Where do you see your industry as a whole heading?

Let us know in our Fall Reader Survey. It won’t take more than a few minutes to complete — and we’ll be sharing the results with the entire community.

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It’s a slow news day (as is often the case late in August), with no single story demanding your attention. We’re still waiting to see what the central bank will (or won’t) do with import restrictions. We’re still waiting to see how far (if at all) Hassan Abdalla will let the EGP ease against the greenback. We’re still waiting to see how talks with the IMF are going… You get the point.

We’re in a natural trough in the news cycle: Abdalla has been on the job for less than two weeks — and has made it clear he is working with cabinet and the team at the central bank to chart the best path forward. The loudest voice on this quiet news morning? Bloomberg, which is back with (yet another) piece on the need to devalue and “stave off” default, as we note in this morning’s news well, below.

WATCH THIS SPACE #1- Could the CBE move to loosen import restrictions next week? Manufacturers may get a break if the central bank moves next week to allow additional raw materials to be imported outside of the letters of credit system, Mohamed Al Bahi, board member at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, told Salet El Tahrir (watch, runtime: 4:54) last night.

Another sign a policy change could be imminent: This came on the same day that Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Governor Hassan Abdalla met with Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly to discuss plans to exempt certain imports — including raw materials and manufacturing essentials — from the L/Cs system, according to a cabinet statement.

Refresher: Madbouly is the latest in a number of key cabinet members to hold meetings with Abdalla in recent days, stoking expectations among business leaders that they may be looking for ways to ease the import restrictions that have hobbled everyone from manufacturers to retailers.

CLARIFICATION- Hisham Ezz Al Arab’s recent remarks to the international media regarding the expectation that CBE Governor Hassan Abdalla might “go faster” on allowing the EGP to float against the greenback were made hours prior to his being named advisor to the governor. At the time, Hisham was not speaking in his capacity as an advisor.

THE PERFECT SIGN OF THE TIMES- The price of your morning cup of joe is getting more expensive thanks to climate change + import restrictions: Coffee prices have doubled since last year to around USD 4k per container as climate change and import restrictions hit supply, Hassan Fawzy, head of the coffee division at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, told Ala Mas’ouleety last night (watch, runtime: 15:25). Harsher climate conditions have affected harvests, pushing prices up, while import restrictions introduced by the central bank earlier this year have kept coffee shipments stuck in ports, he said.

WATCH THIS SPACE #2- Is the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) eyeing shares in Alex Containers and Eastern Company? That’s what a couple of local outlets reported yesterday, citing sources they claim are familiar with the matter. The Gulf country’s sovereign wealth fund is reportedly interested in purchasing a 10-20% stake in Alex Containers held by the Maritime Transport Holding Company. The sources did not disclose figures for Eastern Company, but said that talks were ongoing with the company’s majority shareholder, Chemical Industries Holding (CIHC), and that an agreement would be finalized in the coming days. A senior official at CIHC we reached out to yesterday denied knowledge of the talks and said the company does not have plans to sell any of its shares.

ADVISORS- Matouk Bassiouny & Hennawy is reportedly providing legal advice to the QIA while Baker & McKenzie are counsel to the government, the sources said.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY-

Foreign Minister and COP27 President Sameh Shoukry is in Gabon to participate in the United Nations’ Africa Climate Week, which runs from today to Thursday, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday. Shoukry is also set to meet with senior Gabonese officials, the statement said.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD-

The global financial press are focused on what looks to be another bad day in the financial markets as the sell-off that accompanied Fed chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish speech last week continues to hit investor confidence. Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell more than 1% this morning while Asian markets were heavily in the red, with the Nikkei tumbling almost 3%, the Kospi losing 2.3% and the ASX down 2.1%. The sell-off in the US bond market also continued, pushing two-year yields to their highest level since 2007. (Reuters | Bloomberg | CNBC)

CLOSER TO HOME- The UN called for an immediate ceasefire after clashes between rival Libyan factions left 32 people dead and another 159 wounded in Tripoli, Reuters reports.

THE LONG VIEW-

Inflation is going to be very difficult to bring down and we may not have the tools to do it: That’s the gloomy post-Jackson Hole message offered to the Financial Times by some of the world’s leading central bankers and economists, who say that the challenge of bringing down soaring inflation could be the biggest faced by policymakers in decades. “At least over the next five years, monetary policymaking is going to be much more challenging than it was in the two decades before the pandemic struck,” Gita Gopinath, deputy managing director of the IMF, told the salmon-colored paper. “We are in an environment where supply shocks are going to be more volatile than we’ve been used to, and that’s going to generate more costly trade-offs for monetary policy.”

Raising interest rates alone might not be enough to bring down inflation, as supply chain disruptions, commodity shocks due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and a post-covid demand recovery keep the pressure on. This potentially leaves central banks without the tools needed to address the crisis, said World Bank president David Malpass. “You’re hiking rates in the hope of reducing inflation, but it is being counteracted by so much friction within the supply chain and production cycle.”

ICYMI-

Missed this week’s Inside Industry? In our weekly vertical exploring all things industry and manufacturing, we looked at what manufacturers and industry players are hoping will be the policy priorities for recently-appointed Trade and Industry Minister Ahmed Samir.

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

The Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWEIF) is taking place in Cairo for the first time on 26-27 September, according to a press release (pdf). The hybrid event will bring together more than 60 African and global policy and business experts to discuss how gender integration can boost SME growth.

Egypt’s National Organization for Social Ins. (NOSI) will participate in the Arab Pensions and Social Insurance Conference on 28-29 September in Sharm El Sheikh, a statement by NOSI read. The conference will bring together social ins. organizations and public and private pension providers to discuss widening coverage through region-wide pension reform.

PSA #1- Your deadline to catch a 65% break off late payment fines for your taxes is coming up this Wednesday, 31 August. The waiver applies to late payment fees for customs tariffs, income, real estate, and sales taxes, VAT, and stamp duties among others. The remaining 35% of your due payments will need to be paid before next March.

PSA #2- Exporters have until 15 September to apply to join the fifth phase of FinMin’s export subsidy program, according to a statement. Cabinet has given its approval to pay a total EGP 10 bn out to exporters, with payments to be made on 1 October and 1 December. The program allows exporters to receive overdue subsidies in a single payment rather than in installments over four to five years, in return for a haircut.

Ration card holders now have until 30 September to register their mobile numbers to their cards, in a move meant to make it easier for the Supply Ministry to contact them, the ministry said in a statement yesterday.

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

*** It’s Blackboard day: We have our weekly look at the business of education in Egypt, from pre-K through the highest reaches of higher ed. Blackboard appears every Monday in Enterprise in the place of our traditional industry news roundups.

In today’s issue: Last week, stakeholders in the higher education sector in consultations with the government on its privatization strategy. The broad sentiment is that the sector is faring well, with healthy competition between public and private players, although public universities could learn a few things from their private counterparts to put forward a higher quality of education, our sources tell us.

“Default jitters stalk Egypt, sending traders on a wild ride.” That’s the headline this morning atop the latest from Bloomberg, which has been beating the drum (hard) on the need for devaluation for the better part of a month (“only way is down,” “currency urgency,” and “currency standoff … deepens,” and “shock resignation”). The story is out a little more than a day after Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly said talks with the IMF on a new facility are in the “final stages.”

While the piece quotes Oxford Economics Africa on the need to “stave off default,” the tone evens out a bit later:

• “Egypt is not Sri Lanka — it has much higher reserve buffers and much better financing options going forward,” said Matthew Vogel, London-based portfolio manager and head of sovereign research at FIM Partners. “Egypt’s problem is manageable with tighter policies and official creditor support.”
• “The IMF isn’t a make or break default scenario,” said Todd Schubert, head of fixed-income research at Bank of Singapore. “Rather, it would be a confidence builder and be a catalyst for another leg up in pricing to the point that when the EM market does open up, they could conceivably tap the offshore dollar bond markets.”

So should we be concerned? Yup. But is it time to don lifejackets and head for the exits? Nope.

Catch up quick: Egypt’s external position is coming under significant pressure this year thanks to a perfect storm of surging commodity prices, rising interest rates, a red-hot greenback and turmoil in the financial markets. Investors have pulled at least USD 20 bn from the country, the current account deficit is widening, and pressure has built on the EGP to the point that policymakers appear to be accepting that more flexibility is in the cards.

How much debt are we talking about, anyway? The country currently has more than USD 5 bn USD- and EUR-denominated securities to pay off in 4Q 2022 and another USD 9 bn maturing in 2023, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The business newswire’s emerging-markets economist, Ziad Daoud, has estimated that Egypt will currently need around USD 41 bn to cover debt repayments and its current account deficit through to the end of 2023. Foreign reserves are currently at around USD 33.1 bn.

The probability of the government failing to repay its debt has jumped to its highest since 2013, according to a Bloomberg model. This has caused the spread between Egyptian bonds and US treasuries to rise above 1.2k bps for the first time on record, Bloomberg says, citing JP Morgan data and adding that the cost of insuring against an Egyptian default hit an all-time of 1.5k bps last month, before sliding to 940 bps by the end of last week.

The EGP is down 21.9% since the devaluation in March, slipping further yesterday to 19.24 against the USD and edging closer to a record low. Markets are currently pricing in another 22% decline over the next year.

Absent an IMF facility, FX reserves could stabilize in the near-term: Moody’s Investors Service expects our reserves to stabilize and see a gradual rise on the back of higher non-oil exports and a recovery in foreign inflows. Non-oil exports have already seen a 20% y-o-y increase in the first half of the year to USD 19.35 bn. This comes after foreign reserves declined by almost 20% amid current market conditions.

Rebuilding reserves and addressing FX flexibility are priorities for the new CBE governor: Speculation is growing that the new CBE governor, Hassan Abdalla, will allow the EGP to depreciate further against the USD to ease the pressure. Abdalla’s adviser, banking veteran Hisham Ezz Al Arab, told Reuters just hours before he found out he was being named advisor that he expected Abdalla to go “much faster” currency adjustment than his predecessor Tarek Amer, “not a sudden devaluation like Tarek did, [rather] a faster pace.”

Abdalla’s appointment seems to have calmed the local bond market: Yields on Egyptian three-month treasuries fell for the first time yesterday since May, shedding nearly five points to 16.1% in an auction, which some market participants attributed to Abdalla’s appointment. “The decline, even if it was slight, comes after the meeting of the central bank governor with the heads of banks last week,” one fixed-income trader told Bloomberg Asharq.

Distress is an EM thing right now: Almost a fifth of all emerging market sovereign debt was trading at distressed levels in July. Investors are studying Egypt’s case as a benchmark and indicator for how the rest of the EM debt scene will turn out, Bloomberg writes.

Retail investors put in orders for just 18% of the shares made available to the public in Ghazl El Mahalla FC’s mico-IPO when the subscription period ended yesterday after multiple extensions. That means the football club will not be making its debut on the EGX as planned. By market close yesterday, Ghazl El Mahalla had received bids for 17.6 mn of the 98 mn shares up for grabs in the IPO’s retail portion, according to an EGX bulletin.

Refresher: Ghazl El Mahalla was seeking to raise EGP 135 mn by selling a 67.5% stake in the EGX. The club raised EGP 37 mn during the institutional component of the offering in November and had looked to sell 98 mn shares at EGP 1.02 each in the retail portion of the IPO, which had been set to wrap at the start of July but was extended twice due to weak investor interest.

What happens now? In the event that the public portion of the offering wasn’t fully covered, bidders would have one week to decide whether they want their money refunded or if they’d like to remain as private shareholders until the company eventually gets listed, Mohamed Maher, CEO of bookrunner Prime Holdings, told us when we spoke to him recently. The firm plans to wait until mid-2023 before they restart the listing process, he said. “We may change our strategy next time and include a strategic investor,” Maher said. Prime did not return requests for comment yesteday.

It’s a challenging time for new listings: Inflationary pressures, rising interest rates, and a downturn in global markets have all contributed to a steep decline in the EGX 30 this year. Banque du Caire and Aman have both postponed plans to sell shares on the bourse amid a downturn which has left the benchmark index down 15.6% from its recent peak in January.

Don’t let the size fool you: Although tiny, the IPO’s significance was in the fact that it could have encouraged other clubs (namely Al Ahly) to follow suit and go public.

Egypt-headquartered SaaS startup Zeew secured USD 630k in a seed round led by Plug and Play Ventures, Poland Prize and a number of angel investors, founder and CEO Mohamed Ghaith (LinkedIn) told Enterprise, confirming news first reported by Wamda.

About Zeew: Founded by Ghaith in 2017, Zeew’s software helps companies in sectors like F&B, pharma, and logistics to launch their own on-demand delivery businesses. The round brings the startup’s funding total to USD 1 mn to date.

The company will use the funding to increase its headcount: “Currently our systems are being used in 100 countries and with the funding we plan to grow our team, technology and customer base,” Ghaith told Enterprise.

OTHER STARTUP NEWS- Local social commerce platform Sharwa has launched its mobile app after recently closing a funding round, it said in a statement yesterday. The Cairo-based startup announced this month that it had raised USD 2 mn in a pre-seed round co-led by Nuwa Capital and Hambro Perks’ Oryx Fund.

Local e-payments, loyalty and data analytics startup ZealPay has appointed Sherif Abdou (LinkedIn) as managing director, according to a press release (pdf). Abdou has more than two decades of experience in the telecoms sector and joins the company after spending 18 years at Vodafone, most recently serving as head of commercial operations for Vodafone Cash e-wallets at the company’s business in Egypt. He will oversee ZealPay’s expansion plans in the EMEA region and shape strategy for new data-driven loyalty solutions in the local market.

The talking heads are going deep on the potential loosening of import restrictions: Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly’s sit-down with CBE governor Hassan Abdalla got a lot of attention from the talking heads, with Al Hayah Al Youm (watch, runtime: 4:10) and Salet El Tahrir (watch, runtime: 4:54) discussing the meeting and what it means for monetary policy moving forward. We have more on their sit-down in this morning’s What We’re Tracking Today section, above.

Optimistic about the shakeup at the CBE: “I believe that someone like Hassan Abdalla, who’s had a lot of experience in the banking industry leading this file… is capable of leading this crucial file alongside his advisors, like Hisham El Ezz Arab, who also has a good history with management experience,” Mohamed Al Bahi, board member at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, told Salet El Tahrir.

The government will spend an additional EGP 833 mn a year on additional support for ration card holders that will come into effect on 1 September, Supply Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Kamal told Ala Mas’ouleety (watch, runtime: 4:01). Some 36 mn individuals will benefit from the new measures, he added.

Egypt’s population explosion also got some attention on the airwaves: The country’s population is growing 4x faster than is world’s most populous country, China, Amr Hassan, former secretary-general of the National Population Council, told Ala Mas’ouleety (watch, runtime: 3:48 | 4:14). We’re currently ranked 14th in the world in terms of population size, and we will likely be in 11th place by 2050, Hassan said.

Ancient Egypt is making news internationally this morning after US customs agents seized what could be a 3k-year-old ancient Egyptian artifact shipped from Europe. Homeland security is now examining the find. (Associated Press)

Two Egypt exhibitions stateside are getting attention: The National Geographic Museum in Washington is marking the centennial anniversary of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, and the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts is exhibiting ancient Egyptian artifacts and jewelry collected by twentieth-century Western “Egyptomaniacs.” (The National | WSJ)

Also making headlines:

• Electricity for reserves: The government’s move to ration electricity to export more gas and bolster foreign reserves gets more international ink. (AFP)
• The Nile is getting international plaudits: The Nile river has made a list of top places to explore by boat. (FT)
• Hijabi women continue to face discrimination in Egypt: A BBC investigation found that veiled women are being refused entry to high-end Cairo cafes and restaurants. (BBC)

Hassan Allam Construction to work on Toshka irrigation project: Hassan Allam Construction, a subsidiary of Hassan Allam Holding, has been awarded a contract to install irrigation infrastructure as part of the project to reclaim land in Toshka for wheat production, the company said in a statement last week. Under the contract, the company will build 124 km of irrigation infrastructure for a new zone which aims to turn 16k feddans of desert into agricultural land. The reclaimed land will be planted largely with wheat as part of the Sisi administration’s drive to reduce reliance on imports.

El Sewedy Electric and Madkour have signed contracts worth almost EGP 1.2 bn with the Electricity Ministry to upgrade power infrastructure in the west of the country, Al Borsa reports. The EGX-listed contractor will supply equipment for a transformer station at the New Delta project and provide electricity to substations near the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road under separate contracts worth a combined EGP 1.1 bn. Meanwhile, Madkour signed a EGP 61 mn contract to provide electricity for a transformer station at the New Delta, according to the newspaper.

Enppi and Petrojet have together bought out the 50% stake held by foreign shareholders in International Drilling Material Manufacturing for EGP 2.2 bn, with each of them acquiring 25% of the company, Al Borsa reports, quoting sources it says are in the know. Enppi and Petrojet now each hold a 40% stake in the company, while Ganope owns the remaining 20%. Cairo Capital Securities acted as both the buy-side and sell-side broker.

Other things we’re keeping an eye on this morning:

• Another 63k tons of Romanian wheat arrived at Damietta port yesterday. (Statement)
• Microfinance player Tamweely signed an agreement with healthtech startup Bypass to offer its HealthTag scannable medical records card to Tamweely customers. (Statement, pdf)
• The Armed Forces’ Egypt Center for Research and Regenerative Medicine is establishing Africa’s first biobank — a facility for storing biomedical samples — in partnership with Germany’s Askion and local lab equipment firm Miralab. (Statement)