It won’t be too long before the government closes the bidding window for Wataniya. Planning Minister and Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) Chair Hala El Said told Asharq Business yesterday that investors have 48 hours to submit their final bids for the military-owned filling station operator.

It’s been a long time coming:The government has been working on the Wataniya sale — along with that of the bottled water company Safi — for the past three years, but the sale keeps getting delayed. Wataniya was among five state- and military-owned companies the SFE added to its pre-IPO fund in January 2023. We were expecting the sale to wrap in December last year, before El Said said that it could be pushed back to this month.

Who’s bidding? Taqa Arabia is the only company to have publicly declared interest in the company’s assets, though a number of other firms have been rumored to be lodging bids, including Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) and Shell.

The Gabal El Zeit wind farm stake sale will follow suit: The government will finalize the 580-MW Gabal El Zeit wind farm stake sale before the end of March, El Said added, cementing her comment from December about the stake sale, alongside that of the 545-MW Zafarana wind farm, wrapping up in 1Q 2024.

Where do things currently stand? The SFE has reportedly appointed Belgium-headquartered engineering and consultancy firm Tractebel to act as a consultant for the sale of stakes in the Gabal El Zeit farm and the 545-MW Zafarana wind farm. A number of local and foreign investors have shown interest in the two farms — Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power, the UAE’s Alcazar Energy, UK-based private equity outfit Actis, and our friends at Egyptian renewables firm Infinity.

Remember: Wataniya and the Gabal El Zeit wind farm are both on the government’s list of 35 companies and assets earmarked for privatization.

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