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Thursday, 5 December 2019

What we’re tracking on 5 December 2019

The House of Representatives will be back in session on Sunday after a short recess, reports Al Shorouk. On this week’s agenda: Amendments to the Public Enterprises Act and several oil and gas exploration and production agreements the Oil Ministry has signed with foreign companies.

Will the House be asked to sign off on a cabinet shuffle? Word on the street is that parliament could sign off on the widely expected cabinet reshuffle as early as next week, but we may see our elected representatives wait for Sharm El Sheikh's World Youth Forum to wrap on 17 December.

The Financial Regulatory Authority is looking into the Education Ministry’s decision to impose a 20% cap on foreign ownership in private and international schools, which the market regulator says would be difficult to implement. We have the full story in this morning’s Speed Round, below.

Export subsidy framework talks next week: Egypt’s exports councils will be sitting down on Monday with Export Subsidy Fund boss Amany El Wassal to discuss the fine points of implementing the new export subsidy framework, Chemical and Fertilizers Export Council head Khaled Abo El Makarem said. The executive regulations for the new program were out earlier this week and prompted backlash from industry, which had objections to the mechanism through which the annual allocations would be paid out. Exporters are also concerned about how the fund plans to settle away bns in back due subsidies.

Also a key news trigger next week: Inflation figures for November are out next Tuesday, 10 December. Headline inflation fell to new multi-year lows of 2.4% last month due to cooling food and beverage inflation and a favorable base effect.

The government has launched a mobile app designed to allow citizens to monitor Egypt’s economic indicators and progress on national projects, according to a Planning Ministry statement. The app, Sharek 2030, gives users the option to send in suggestions to the government on specific issues to address.

The African Union’s Committee of Fifteen Ministers of Finance (F15) will meet at the Four Seasons in Sharm El Sheikh tomorrow to discuss financial regulations on the continent and AU budget reform.

The annual RiseUp Summit opens its doors today at the AUC campus in New Cairo. Tap or click here for the full agenda if you’re a denizen of planet startup or otherwise want to get in on the action.

Elsewhere in startupverse: Eleven startups graduated from Flat6Labs’ second cycle of the year, says Masrawy. The graduates span the e-commerce, logistics, management consulting, software and web development, professional recruitment, medical technology, and AI industries.

enterpriseThe Cascades Spa at Somabay has 65 treatment rooms and facilities extended over 7,500 SQMs offering a range of first-class treatments and services with a further 750 m2 Thalasso-Tonic Hydrotherapy Pool. Containing 830 m3 of sea-water sub-divided into a number of distinct zones with water jets, currents and counter-currents, showers and bubbling baths.

KUDOS- EFG Hermes vaults up the rankings in Bloomberg’s global league table. Homegrown investment bank EFG Hermes, which has evolved in recent years into the premier financial services corporation in frontier emerging markets, has vaulted up Bloomberg’s global IPO league table, becoming the 28th largest equity arranger in the world thanks in part to its work on the Saudi Aramco IPO. EFG Hermes will also “jump 19 spots on the Europe, Middle East and Africa equity rankings to No. 20 once the Aramco IPO prices” today, the business information service notes. “This will be the first time the Egyptian bank has been in the top 20 [in EMEA], according to Bloomberg data going back to 1999.” EFG Hermes is a frequent fixture on Reuters’ narrower Middle East equity capital markets league table, while Bloomberg’s version covers the wider EMEA region. Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase top Bloomberg’s global league table, the business information service said last night.

Last-minute funding brings one of MENA’s largest startups back from the brink: Dubai courier app Fetchr has been rescued from imminent collapse by investors who provided USD 10 mn in emergency funding, Bloomberg reports. Existing investors, who have put in more than USD 50 mn in the seven years since the company was founded, will see their shares diluted to near-zero, according to a letter seen by the news information service. Fetchr, once valued at USD 300 mn as one of the region’s brightest startup prospects, has fallen back to earth over the past 12 months, coming within an inch of bankruptcy.

Tech miscellany:

  • Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are stepping down from their top executive roles at Google’s parent company Alphabet, but will “continue their involvement as co-founders, shareholders and members of Alphabet’s board of directors,” the company announced this week.
  • The Big Data economy isn’t popular: Almost three-quarters of people want governments to rein in tech companies and regulate how they collect and use personal data, a survey by Amnesty Tech finds.
  • Twitter is issuing unsecured bonds for the first time: The company is looking to raise USD 600 mn after its earnings failed to meet expectations, the Wall Street Journal reported.

enterprise

The next episode of Making It will be out this afternoon, just in time for your drive home. Today’s guest is EFG Hermes Group CEO Karim Awad, who speaks with us about culture, transformation, ego and why hiring at the bottom of the pyramid and promoting from within is the way to go. Look for the episode on email and in your podcast feed today at around 2:15pm CLT.

Did you miss our first two episodes? Learn about food emporium Gourmet Egypt and AI-backed digital assistant Elves on Apple Podcast or Google Podcast.

*** Do you want to reach out to a guest who’s appeared on Making It? Or get in contact with someone we’ve interviewed or written about? Drop us an email at editorial@enterprise.press letting us know who you are, who you want to speak with and what the approximate subject is (ie: a suggestion you may not be a crank or a stalker) and we’ll happily pass on the message.

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