IPO WATCH- Fresh Electric For Home Appliances Company is planning to sell as much as 20% of its shares in an IPO on the EGX “sometime soon,” said senior company executive Bahaa El Demtery. The company has already applied for Financial Regulatory Authority approval to list and is undergoing an internal restructuring to meet EGX regulations, he added. The IPO would help raise funding for the firm’s plan to build up its production capacity by 10%. The company apparently wants to also bolster export sales in the face of very stiff regional competition. Fresh, which exports 50% of its manufactured goods, appears to be finding it tough to compete with state subsidized Chinese exports in the MENA region, said El Demtery. He called on the state to begin paying out long-delayed export subsidies.

Fresh is also looking to branch out of electric appliances and into auto component manufacturing, he added. The company spend EGP 35 mn developing a butane cylinder plant, and it wants to use part of the production capacity of the factory to build car components. Nearly 40% of the firm’s production capacity is contracted out to other companies, he noted.