Deepening ties with the European Union is the theme of the week, it seems: EU Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete is in Cairo from today through Tuesday to sign an MoU on energy cooperation with Egypt, announce a funding package from the EU and French Development Agency to support the connection of more households to the natural gas grid, and meetings with state officials and energy company heads to discuss ways to boost energy cooperation.

Also in town soon: EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who is set to visit Cairo on Monday, 30 April, to sign a number of cooperation agreements. We have the details on both visits in Speed Round, below.

Finance Minister Amr El Garhy and Planning Minister Hala El Said will be discussing today the details of the state IPO program with the House Economic Committee, MP Medhat El Sherif said. The committee is apparently looking to gain some clarity on the program’s specifics, including the projected size of each listing and the planned use of the proceeds.

Egypt appears is on trend with its recent decision to establish a sovereign wealth fund. Estimates seem to suggest that total assets managed by 78 global sovereign wealth funds could reach USD 15 tn “as early as 2020,” the Financial Times says. Total assets managed by global sovereign wealth funds grew 13% y-o-y in March 2018 to USD 7.45 tn, according to data from Preqin. “A recovery in oil prices and strong gains for equity markets drove the increase in assets…[The] scrutiny of these funds’ policies and performance is only likely to grow.” The Ismail Cabinet signed off earlier this month on legislation establishing a EGP 200 bn sovereign wealth fund, which should see the light in about six-months’ time, once it receives Parliament’s approval.

Look for the prospect of a US-North Korea summit to dominate headlines this week after the DPRK pledged to stop nuclear weapons tests and missile launches effective yesterday. It also promised to shutdown a nuclear test center, but made clear it is hanging onto its existing weapons. The announcement is front page news in the global business press. No summit date has yet to be announced, and if you’re a diplo-nerd, the Washington Post has a good rundown on the five locations that could be tapped to host the sit-down, with the leading candidate apparently being the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar.

Brokers, beware: More buysiders are poaching staff to build or expand their own corporate access programs lest they run afoul of Mifid II, the Financial Times says, noting that fund managers are “less inclined to pay for corporate access” and that BlackRock, Fidelity and Schroders (“three of the biggest fund houses) and Norges Bank Investment Management (“the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund”) are all recruiting staff to their corporate access teams, while smaller investors have “decided they will no longer pay brokers for corporate access and will deal with companies themselves.”

Tech stocks will be back in the spotlight as the western trading week gets underway tomorrow after Apple shares shed 7% in two days on fears that its smartphone sales will fall short of consensus, the Financial Times reports. The jitters dragged the Dow down 0.9% on Friday and saw the Nasdaq off 1.3%, according to CNBC.

Do you secretly hate PowerPoint? Jeff Bezos does. That’s why meetings at Amazon begin with “well-crafted, six-page memos that the whole room sits and reads” before getting underway. Business Insider has more on why PPTX files are banned at Amazon. Bezos dove into the topic during an on-stage interview on Friday.

Season two of HBO’s Westworld kicks off today in the United States. Here at home, you can catch it tomorrow (23 April) at 11pm CLT on OSN First HD. The New York Times has a critical look at what you can expect.

It’s not quite summer yet, at least where the weather is concerned. The national weather service is warning that dust storms and rain will continue to hit cities in the Delta and North Coast today and into tomorrow. The outlook for Cairo is a mix of sun and cloud today with a high of 27°C. Longer term, look for a chance of scattered showers on Wednesday and the possibility of scattered thunderstorms on Thursday, according to our favourite weather app.

There are three weekends left before the start of Ramadan, which the head of the National Astronomy and Geophysics Research Institute says will begin on Thursday, 17 May. Consider that “TBC” — day one of the holy month depends on the sighting of the moon on 15 or 16 May.