IPO WATCH- Market regulator grants nine-month extension for companies planning IPOs: The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) has extended by nine months the deadline for companies that have listed their shares on the EGX but have yet to begin trading due to market conditions, according to a statement. The extension pushes the deadline from 31 March to December 2020, but requires these companies to provide the FRA with a planned timeline for their IPOs by the end of May.

Who does this extension apply to? The statement doesn’t clarify how many companies the extension applies to, but the most obvious example we know is state-owned Banque du Caire (BdC), which has been listed on the EGX since 2017, but has yet to IPO since then. BdC’s IPO was expected to go to market in April but was shelved along with the rest of the state privatization program as the covid-19 outbreak wreaked havoc on global equity markets. The state-owned lender is expected to debut 20-30% of its shares, and could go ahead during the second half of the year if calm returns to the markets, sources involved with the program said last week.