New developer federation will rank builders

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WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

BP’s Egyptian gas assets are drawing bids from incumbents and newcomers alike

Good morning, folks. Two of today’s top stories are all about one thing: What rising prices are doing to Egypt’s property market.

The fixes are coming from both sides. On the supply side, a planned developers federation would rank builders and filter out the underqualified — though some in the market worry it could lock newcomers out, too. On the demand side, the Financial Regulatory Authority is letting mortgage lenders pool funding for a single high-value purchase, a workaround for prices climbing faster than any one lender can cover.

In capital markets: The Arab Energy Fund is circling a fifth of Maridive, at a premium worth a look inside.

BEFORE WE DIVE IN- A fire in Damietta Port yesterday spread to two regasification and storage vessels, the Oil Ministry confirmed. On-site emergency personnel including firefighters contained the blaze, which impacted a total of two ships, the ministry said, adding that there were no injuries. The ministry’s statement did not address widely circulating claims in the international press of a drone strike on the US-owned gas storage tanker. The ministry called on the press and social media users to “obtain information from official statements issued by the ministry.”

A source in the petroleum industry told us there had been no damage to natural gas export or import infrastructure — and said the incident posed no threat to the nation’s electricity-generation sector. The incident began when a blaze broke out in the engine room of an old, stationary ship, the source added.

US President Donald Trump said he had been “briefed” on the fire, adding, “it’s a little more of the same. But it's going to be straightening out,” Reuters reported. Trump did not elaborate further.

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The EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum is back — and this year, we’re giving the full day to the one question on every business leader's mind: What does AI actually mean for your company, your people, and your own job?

Leaders in New York, London, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore are asking the same things, and nobody has built a playbook that works yet. We're all figuring it out in real time — and for Egypt, the stakes are unusually high.

Egypt could leapfrog a generation on the back of this technology — or watch AI hollow out the industries and jobs we can't afford to lose. The leaders who get literate early will be the ones who get to decide which road we take.

Every session on stage answers one question: “So, what do I actually do about it?”

Join us on 5 October in Cairo. Seats are limited and attendance is by invitation only.

Request your invitation here.

Four potential bidders

The race for BP’s West Nile Delta: UAE-based Dragon Oil, US private equity firm Carlyle Group, Mediterranean-focused Energean, and London-based Artemis Energy are among the groups expected to submit bids for BP’s offshore West Nile Delta gas assets, Reuters reports, citing three sources familiar with the matter. Offers are due by the end of the week, though their size and terms remain unclear.

The incumbents: Dragon Oil already operates in Egypt after buying BP’s Gulf of Suez oil assets in 2019, working through Gupco, its JV with EGPC. A successful bid would hand it a second major BP package, moving it beyond its Gulf of Suez oil base into Mediterranean gas. Energean already operates Abu Qir, North El Amriya, and North Idku gas assets off Alexandria. BP’s assets would substantially expand its West Nile Delta position and could create operational overlap with its existing Mediterranean offshore infrastructure.

The newcomers: Carlyle is taking another run at a Mediterranean portfolio after agreeing to buy Energean’s Egyptian, Italian, and Croatian assets for up to USD 945 mn, a transaction that collapsed in March last year after failing to secure regulatory approvals. The current pursuit suggests the Mediterranean strategy is still alive, though the firm would be entering Egypt as a financial sponsor rather than an incumbent operator. Artemis is a newly established upstream acquisition platform, with no apparent Egyptian operating base, meaning the pursuit could serve as an anchor acquisition.

Background: BP recently secured government approval to transfer five Mediterranean gas concessions to Arcius Energy, its JV with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s investment company XRG, as it undergoes a global corporate overhaul and works to raise USD 20 bn through asset sales by 2027. The company was reportedly weighing the sale of select natural gas assets in Egypt last May as part of a restructuring effort rather than a retreat from the country. BP has poured more than USD 35 bn over six decades and produces around 60% of the country’s natural gas.

A floor under floating rates

CIB is setting a floor for its floating-rate certificates and adding a daily payout option, giving savers protection against deeper rate cuts while keeping the upside if the CBE holds. The bank’s new three-year floating CDs pay an annual rate of 19.5% disbursed monthly with a 17.5% floor, or 19.25% with daily payouts and a 17.25% floor, according to CIB’s website. Both require a minimum EGP 1k and can be redeemed early at a reduced rate — the monthly product pays 9.5% if cashed out after six months, stepping down to 7.5% by year three, while the daily product runs slightly lower, from 9.25% to 7.25%.

The certificates track the CBE’s overnight deposit rate, with the monthly product priced 0.5 percentage points above it and the daily product 0.25 points higher. The structure lets CIB reprice the certificates as rates move, while the floors shield savers if the easing cycle deepens.

IN CONTEXT- The products add to the deposit competition that has intensified this year, with lenders favoring three-year instruments that reprice alongside the CBE corridor rather than locking in high fixed funding costs.

Happening tomorrow

Investors have until tomorrow to weigh in on S&P Dow Jones’ (S&P DJI) consultation over demoting Egypt from Emerging to Frontier status, marking a two-week delay from the original 17 July cutoff, according to a notice (pdf) from the index provider. If approved, the reclassification wouldn’t kick in until the September 2027 reconstitution, moving Egypt out of the same basket as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and India and into the Frontier universe alongside Morocco, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

S&P DJI isn’t ignoring Egypt’s progress. It credits the country with fewer delays for foreign investors repatriating capital, which justified lifting the special measures it had imposed back in May 2023. But progress on repatriation hasn’t been enough, with market accessibility, capital mobility, and institutional stability all still falling short of the index provider’s bar for Emerging status.

REFRESHER- Egypt currently makes up just 0.12% of S&P DJI’s Emerging BMI, and would account for 3.4% of the Frontier BMI if reclassified. That’s nearly 29x its current weight, enough to make it one of the more consequential names in that index. The consultation opened in June, prompting the exchange to reach out to S&P DJI to better understand what’s driving it, EGX Chairman Omar Radwan said at the time, while pundits saw the bigger risk as one of perceptions rather than flows.

PSA-

WEATHER- Brace for another hot day in the capital, with Cairo looking at a high of 37°C and a low of 26°C, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s a little cooler in Alexandria, with a high of 33°C and a low of 25°C.

The big story abroad

The start-stop nature of the regional war has intensified after Iran and the US exchanged attacks in the early hours of the morning. Iran renewed its missile attacks on US forces in the Middle East before Washington responded with fresh strikes on the Islamic Republic, the US Central Command said.

Grant Thornton closed the largest accounting takeover seen in years, moving to acquire longtime rival CBIZ for USD 5 bn in an allcash transaction. The move cements Grant Thornton’s rank as the largest US audit and consulting firm, excluding the Big Four, marking a culmination of an acquisition streak kicked off two years ago.

Standard Chartered has unveiled a USD 1 bn share buyback plan, coinciding with imminent cost cuts, which will include scaling down back-office jobs and intensifying AI use. The move is backed by higher 2Q income, with pre-tax earnings rising 2% y-o-y to USD 2.3 bn — exceeding analysts’ expectations.

Meanwhile, in the banking world: Goldman Sachs is mulling a potential USD 5.4 bn debt offering — split between secured bonds and a term loan — to help raise funds for a Microsoft-tied data center backed by Blackstone. The planned bond issuance would have a five-year maturity, whereas the loan would be due in seven years.

Egypt's planned developer federation wants to classify builders, without locking newcomers out

Egypt’s property market wants a gatekeeper, but not one that locks serious newcomers out. The planned Real Estate Developers Federation is expected to classify developers, assigning rankings that would potentially shape the scale of projects they are qualified to undertake. That step could filter out undercapitalized players, industry insiders tell EnterpriseAM. However, the move could also entrench the market’s largest companies if its rules leave no credible path for newer firms to move up, they add.

The stakes are national. Real estate contributes more than 20% of GDP, Fathallah Fawzy, head and deputy chair of the Egyptian Businessmen’s Association’s (EBA) Real Estate Development and Contracting Committee, tells EnterpriseAM. He points to 22 new cities built over the past decade, which he says is the equivalent of the prior 30 years’ output. The New Capital alone hosts around 500 developers, with several thousand nationwide, according to Tarek Bahaa, a real estate development expert and EBA member, who notes the sector anchors more than 100 related industries.

The broad architecture is taking shape, but the teeth are not. The Housing Ministry is working on legislation to make federation membership mandatory, establish professional registries, and classify developers according to their financial strength, execution record, project scale, and technical and administrative capacity. What remains unclear is whether those classifications will merely inform the market or determine who can obtain land, launch projects, or operate at all.

Some developers want the rankings to carry real consequences. Pre-classifying companies could stop land from being allocated to firms without sufficient experience and cut the time government bodies spend reviewing applications from qualified developers, Beta Egypt for Urban Development Chair Alaa Fikry tells EnterpriseAM. “Pre-classification carries a major operational advantage for serious developers: it could shorten the time government entities spend studying land-allocation files, accelerating investment by local and foreign companies alike,” he says.

The market wants a filter

The sales launch cannot be the test. More than 1k companies entered the market as the supply of development land expanded over the past decade, with roughly half lacking sufficient experience, Fawzy says, a dynamic he ties to rising defaults and delivery delays, compounded by the float and higher construction costs. Bahaa argues the federation should move the market away from measuring developers by sales alone. “The time when a developer’s success was judged by the volume of sales is over,” Bahaa tells us. “Real success is now measured by the ability to manage cash flows, commit to execution, and operate the project professionally.”

One ranking will not fit every developer. Classification should stop a company equipped to develop 20 feddans from taking on 300 without the resources to meet its obligations, Bahaa says. But scale alone cannot become a permanent label. A company may be fully capable of delivering a 50-feddan project and still lack the experience to take on 300 or 400 feddans, One of One CEO Mostafa Salah tells us, adding that financial strength alone is not enough and that newer developers should not be penalized simply because they have yet to reach their first delivery date.

A lower classification should be a starting point, not a dead end. A credible framework should reward developers with proven delivery records while giving serious newer companies a clear route to build their reputations over time, Catesby Langer-Paget, head of Savills Egypt, tells EnterpriseAM. Smaller and newer developers should be allowed to move up by strengthening their capital, management structure, reporting, and execution record, he says. “A category C developer is not necessarily a bad developer,” Salah tells us. “The question is what that classification is based on and whether the company has a fair [prospect] to grow, rather than finding the market permanently closed in favor of businesses that have been operating for 20 or 30 years.”

Partnership cannot be the only way up, some argue. Classification could push smaller developers toward mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures with higher-ranked companies, a trend which is already underway, Salah says. But consolidation should not become the only route to larger projects. “It should not be the only way for me to improve my classification,” he tells us. “If I am a serious developer and the requirements are fair, I should be able to meet them within my own company, grow, and improve my classification.”

But others take a stricter view: “Startups won’t be excluded from the market, but they must enter through partnerships with people who have actual development experience,” he says. The disagreement goes to the heart of the system’s design — whether partnerships are one route to a higher classification or a prerequisite for entering the market at all.

The missing half: Protecting buyers

Regulating developers won’t, on its own, protect the people who buy from them. The federation’s mandate covers developers, not buyers, Fawzy argues, and that leaves the market’s central vulnerability unaddressed. “The federation can classify companies and prevent them from taking on projects beyond their capacity,” he tells us, but he says a separate, independent national authority is needed to oversee the developer-buyer-broker relationship, modeled on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Escrow is the mechanism both sides keep returning to. Mandating escrow accounts — where buyer payments are held and released against verified construction milestones — would end what Fikry calls the market’s most damaging practice: using deposits on new projects to fund construction on older, stalled ones. “This is the practice that has long threatened execution rates and buyer confidence,” he says. Fawzy backs the same tool, pairing it with rules barring developers from marketing or selling units before legal approvals and standardizing loading factors so buyers can compare true unit areas.

The graders need grading

The companies setting the rules cannot also grade their rivals. If active developers sit on the federation’s board, classification should be handled by independent technical committees insulated from board direction, Salah says, warning that even the perception of favoritism could undermine the system. The federation’s impact will ultimately depend on how it is established, who runs it, and whether its rules are applied consistently, Langer-Paget says.

A voice for developers, or a judge of them? The federation’s core role should be to organize the profession, represent serious developers, and help create a more supportive operating environment, rather than automatically becoming a quasi-judicial body, Salah says. “We are not creating this federation to stand against developers; we are creating it to organize the market, encourage serious players, and give the sector a stronger voice with government entities,” he tells us.

Delays are not all created equal. Delivery performance should be central to classification, but a missed deadline cannot automatically be treated as proof of mismanagement, Salah says, pointing to currency shocks and material shortages that can disrupt construction across the market. The assessment should distinguish documented external pressures from failures within the developer’s control, such as selling one specification and delivering another, failing to provide promised facilities, or repeatedly falling behind without a credible explanation.

Where classification helps most

The registry matters most where reputations are still being built. A credible classification system could give buyers and institutional investors a clearer basis for comparing developers, particularly beyond the handful of established names whose delivery records are already widely known, Langer-Paget tells us. The absence of common standards for disclosures, contract terms, and reporting currently makes it hard for buyers and investors to compare companies and assess risk with confidence, he says. The largest developers need little help proving their standing, Salah adds; the real value would be in giving buyers a clearer read on newer and less familiar companies.

A federation is only as credible as the system it builds. The developers and industry insiders we spoke with broadly agree on the need for a unified body, but its value will depend on transparent classifications, independent administration, and a genuine route for serious developers to advance. “A strong institution with clear powers could deliver a real shift for the market, while a purely formal entity would make little difference,” Langer-Paget tells us. Bahaa sees the sector entering a period of sorting in which developers will increasingly be judged by whether they deliver and operate projects, not simply by how much they sell.

What’s next

Watch for build-to-rent: As purchasing power erodes for a wide slice of buyers, Fikry expects investment funds and specialized firms to move into institutional rental — buying, leasing, and managing residential units on a B2B/B2C model — as a new channel to sustain sector sales. Whether the classification framework accommodates that model, or is built only around the sell-off-plan economics that dominate today, is the design question to watch as the draft law advances.

FRA lets mortgage lenders pool funding for high-value properties

Mortgage finance companies can now pool funding for the same high-value property purchase after the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) permitted “participatory financing” allowing multiple lenders to split a single financing ticket, according to an FRA statement. The move gives companies with smaller capital bases room to fund pricier units they couldn’t underwrite alone. The FRA approved the change in response to a request from the Egyptian Mortgage Finance Federation, citing rising unit prices and the limited capital of some lenders.

The change answers a real bottleneck, Egyptian Mortgage Finance Federation head Mohamed El Kahky tells EnterpriseAM. Smaller companies were turning away clients whose financing needs exceeded what any one firm could extend under its solvency and concentration limits. “This decision officially opens the door to accepting these clients by having more than one company share in extending the financing and distributing the risk among them,” he says.

The catch: pooling doesn’t lift any single lender’s limits. Each participating company remains individually bound by the FRA’s solvency standards and concentration caps. The mechanism adds lenders rather than stretching any one of them.

How it works: Lenders use the FRA’s standard mortgage agreement, with the additional financiers’ details added to the contract. The existing limits each company must separately observe:

Residential financing stays capped at 90% of property value, or 100% under ijara — a shariah-compliant lease-to-own financing structure;
Monthly installments cannot exceed 50% of the borrower’s income;
Exposure to one residential borrower, their spouse, and minor children cannot exceed 15% of the lender’s capital base;
Non-residential financing is capped at 80% of unit value, with exposure to one borrower capped at 30% of the lender’s capital base.

What happens on default: The borrower signs one financing contract on the asset covering all participating lenders and pays a single installment, collected once and split among the companies by their share, El Kahky says. If the borrower defaults, enforcement on the property is handled jointly, given the shared asset and common interest, with the proceeds of any sale divided among the lenders according to each one’s outstanding balance. There’s no mandatory “lead arranger” model, but in practice the companies can authorize one of them to manage enforcement on the others’ behalf.

Why now? New mortgage-finance customers fell more than 21% y-o-y in 1Q 2026, even as the value of financing extended rose more than 17.5%, according to the FRA. Residential units took around 78% of total financing, a market where fewer borrowers are taking on ever-larger tickets. To El Kahky, that gap is the whole point: “Financing amounts per individual rose as a result of higher unit prices, which left smaller companies unable to handle these high-value assets on their own,” he says. Participatory financing is meant to relieve this squeeze by widening the pool of clients lenders can serve, not just protecting existing volumes.

IN CONTEXT- The FRA raised the maximum installment-to-income ratio to 50% in 2022, from 35% for low-income and 40% for middle-income borrowers, as inflation and the weaker EGP drove housing prices up. It later doubled mortgage finance companies’ minimum capital to EGP 100 mn from EGP 50 mn, another response to rising construction costs and property prices.

OUR TAKE- Co-financing gives lenders more room to write larger mortgages but does little for the underlying affordability problem. Industry players told us in June that even upper-middle-income buyers start dropping out as unit prices approach EGP 15 mn, while quality homes around the EGP 7 mn “sweet spot” have grown scarce. The strain showed in the primary market too, where the top 10 developers saw unit sales fall 15% y-o-y in 1Q, with the drop in sales value held to 6.5% only by higher prices.

What’s next: El Kahky expects the first participatory-financing agreement — possibly two — to close within the current quarter.

Arab Energy Fund plans to submit a non-binding offer for 20% of Maridive

The Arab Energy Fund wants a fifth of Maridive. Riyadh-based Arab Energy Fund, the multilateral institution previously known as the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation, plans to submit a non-binding offer for 20% of EGX-listed offshore services group Maridive & Oil Services at a preliminary USD 0.65-0.72 per share, according to a bourse disclosure (pdf). The offer is still subject to due diligence and regulatory and internal approvals.

At a premium: The bottom of the range is a 32.3% premium to Maridive’s three-month average close of USD 0.49, while the top marks a 46.5% premium. Against the six-month average of USD 0.46, the range runs 42-57.3%, the offeror said.

The clock, if the board says yes: Maridive’s board meets next week to weigh the terms. If the fund is granted access, Maridive has five business days to open its books, followed by up to 60 business days of due diligence before there’s a real read on whether this becomes a binding offer.

The bid comes as Maridive’s numbers move the right way. The company posted consolidated net income of USD 23.2 mn in 1Q 2026, up 29% y-o-y from USD 18 mn, according to a reviewed financial disclosure filed with the EGX.

Market Reax: Maridive’s stock rose 4.6% yesterday to close at USD 0.68.

About the target company

Founded in Port Said in 1978, Maridive claims to be the largest offshore marine and oil-support services company in Egypt and the largest regionally by fleet size, with over 65 marine units, according to its website. The group operates through three subsidiaries: Maridive Offshore Projects, with offices in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, handling large-scale offshore work including diving, pipelaying, subsea construction, and survey; Maritide, wholly owned since Maridive bought out former JV partner Tidewater Marine in 2001; and Ocean Marine, its UAE-incorporated offshore support vessel arm.

ICYMI- Maridive Offshore Projects landed a 15-year, USD 10.2 mn-a-year maintenance and production-support contract in Qatar’s petroleum sector in December, with operations set to begin in 1Q 2028. A long-dated FCY revenue stream of this kind likely factors into the Arab Energy Fund’s due diligence.

Maridive is one of only eight EGX-listed names that trade in USD, a group that includes Golden Pyramids Plaza, NileSat, Valmore Holding, Naeem Holding, Concrete Fashion Group, Egyptian Gulf Bank, and Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt, and set to grow as state petroleum names Enppi, PMS, and Elab move from temporary to main-board listings.

What World Cup spending tells us before the next crowd arrives

A crowd changes a city’s commerce in measurable ways. The FIFA World Cup 2026™ produced a large enough sample to see it: cross-border Visa transactions in host cities across Canada, Mexico, and the US rose nearly 20% y-o-y during the tournament period. Visa calls the effect a “pop-up economy”: a temporary, concentrated burst of commercial activity that forms around a major cultural, entertainment, or sporting event, then moves on.

The activity landed first in the categories visitors reach immediately. Transportation and entertainment saw the heaviest volumes, with dining, retail, and lodging also benefiting. Tap-to-pay transactions rose nearly 12%, reflecting what travelers expect in crowded places: quick, secure, familiar ways to pay.

The pattern changed by market. Boston recorded the strongest y-o-y growth in dining, while Guadalajara led growth in transportation. In the cities where in-person spending rose the most, domestic cardholders contributed alongside international visitors, widening the effect beyond inbound tourism.

Some markets felt the World Cup without hosting it. Norway’s surprise run to the quarterfinals nearly doubled Visa transaction volumes in the country during matches, while spending rose in more than 60 countries whenever Norway played. The data tracked domestic activity across bars, restaurants, retail, and entertainment venues in the hours around kickoff, compared with similar days and times before the tournament. The effect was measured in hours, and it traveled with attention.

For businesses, the data points to a narrow window. Demand arrives suddenly, often in the first categories a visitor reaches, and often on cards issued somewhere else. A hotel, tour operator, restaurant, retailer, or transport provider can only benefit from that demand if acceptance, terminal capacity, staffing, inventory, and settlement are ready before the rush arrives.

For Egypt, the value sits in the pattern rather than the geography of the dataset. The World Cup numbers show how event demand behaves when attention concentrates: it moves quickly, spills beyond the venue, and rewards the businesses ready before footfall arrives. Egypt’s version could be a conference season, a festival calendar, a major concert, or a North Coast rush. The local shape will differ, but the commercial question is familiar: can merchants accept, serve, and settle demand at the moment the crowd appears?

Spain’s Konecta is investing USD 100 mn to build its AI hub out of Cairo

Spain’s Konecta Group has officially opened its Middle East and Africa headquarters in New Cairo, backed by a USD 100 mn investment plan, according to a press release (pdf). The unit will host the group’s first global Center of Excellence for Generative AI, building the AI and agentic tools — including its Kolibri orchestration platform — that the company deploys globally. Konecta currently runs roughly 800 specialists out of Cairo and plans to nearly quadruple that to about 3k by the end of 2028, serving clients across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

Not a yes, not a no

B Investments neither confirms nor denies earlier media reports that a consortium it leads is looking to raise its stake in the Scientific Research, Education, and Development Company to 40%, up from 25%, according to a bourse filing (pdf). The EGX-listed investment firm said any additional investment in the entity behind the European Universities in Egypt “will be studied.” B Investments first bought into the entity in April, pledging EGP 560 mn, as it looks to double down on education assets.

More time to weigh the bid

The Financial Regulatory Authority has extended the New Construction Chemical-Escom consortium’s voluntary tender offer for Spinalex to 13 August, according to an EGX disclosure (pdf). The bidders are looking to acquire up to 48.41 mn shares — a 13.42% stake — at EGP 15 apiece, according to the disclosure.

REMEMBER- Full uptake would lift the consortium and related parties’ holding to 33% from 19.58%, stopping just short of the 33.33% threshold that would trigger a mandatory offer for the remaining shares, as we reported earlier this month. The targeted stake is valued at EGP 726.15 mn.

Egypt, Madagascar ink five MoUs

Egypt and Madagascar signed five MoUs covering political consultations, maritime transport and port development, investment, AI and digital transformation, and youth and sports, according to Ahram News.

Why this matters: Cyclones Fytia and Gezani caused damage equal to 3.4% of Madagascar’s GDP in early 2026 and destroyed close to 70% of the housing stock in Toamasina, its second-largest city and main port. Madagascar received USD 225 mn in financing from the World Bank for urban reconstruction this July. Both countries also sit inside COMESA’s freetrade area, and Egyptian contractors already have a foothold on the ground: the Egyptian consortium EGAAD was developing a USD 300 mn road project in Madagascar, one of several African infrastructure wagers the group has made in recent years.

More on our radar:

Arabia Developments has secured approval to launch fractional real estate investment services and is preparing to list its first assets through the new CoWealth platform. The group set up a real estate fund and a separate promotion, underwriting, and fund-management arm to operate under the FRA’s fractional ownership framework. (Company statement)

Fed keeps rates steady after divided meeting

The Fed has run out of room to cut, and Wednesday made that official. The US Federal Reserve held its benchmark rate at 3.5% to 3.75% for the fifth consecutive meeting, voting nine to three, with three regional Fed presidents dissenting in favor of a 25 bps hike.

It was one of the closest calls in years. The rate has sat at its lowest level since November 2022 for five straight meetings.

The year opened with markets pricing at least one cut in 2026. They are now pricing a hike, possibly as soon as September. What flipped the bias is inflation, which the Fed ties, in part, to “the conflict in the Middle East,” compounded by a rebound in oil.

The bind? The pressure is energy- and supply-driven, and higher rates do little to touch it, which leaves the committee holding a restrictive stance against inflation its own tools cannot reach.

The dissent came from Cleveland’s Beth Hammack, Minneapolis’ Neel Kashkari, and Dallas’ Lorie Logan, all of whom wanted to tighten as inflation has run above the 2% target for more than five years. New Chair Kevin Warsh, in his second meeting since succeeding Jerome Powell in May, called the split “a good family fight,” and has been dismantling the Fed’s forward guidance, telling markets to read developments directly rather than wait for the committee to signal its next move. President Trump renewed his push for lower rates.

The plumbing is already tightening without the Fed lifting a finger. The 30-year Treasury yield climbed more than 9 basis points to 5.193% after the decision. Morgan Stanley reads it the other way: it expects a hold through 2026 and two cuts in 2027, arguing markets have already tightened conditions by the equivalent of four 25 bps hikes since the Iran conflict began.

What’s next: The 15-16 September meeting will come following updated economic projections and two rounds of inflation and jobs data before then. June’s dot plot already split the committee: nine officials saw at least one hike by year-end, eight saw no change, one saw a cut. Warsh declined to submit a projection of his own.

MARKETS THIS MORNING-

Asia-Pacific markets opened higher in early trading following the Fed’s rate decision. South Korea’s Kospi is leading gains, with Japan’s Nikkei, the Shanghai Composite, and the Hang Seng all trailing behind. But it isn’t just the Fed’s decision that pushed the Kospi higher — “the Korean stock market underwent a strong deleveraging phase since mid-June. Now, it has entered a phase of attractive and low valuations and momentum,” JP Morgan says.

EGX30	53,627	-0.2% (YTD: +28.2%)
USD (CBE)	Buy 50.64	Sell 50.78
USD (CIB)	Buy 50.60	Sell 50.70
Interest rates (CBE)	19.00% deposit	20.00% lending
Tadawul	10,544	-1.3% (YTD: +0.5%)
ADX	9,840	+0.1% (YTD: -1.5%)
DFM	5,797	+0.1% (YTD: -4.1%)
S&P 500	7,316	-1.5% (YTD: +6.9%)
FTSE 100	10,908	+0.3% (YTD: +9.8%)
Euro Stoxx 50	6,249	-0.7% (YTD: +7.8%)
Brent crude	USD 90.74	+7.9%
Natural gas (Nymex)	USD 2.72	0.0%
Gold	USD 4,135	+0.9%
BTC	USD 64,011	+0.4% (YTD: -26.9%)
S&P Egypt Sovereign Bond Index	1,085	+0.1% (YTD: +9.3%)
S&P MENA Bond & Sukuk	150.63	+0.2% (YTD: -0.8%)
VIX (Volatility Index)	20.66	+13.5% (YTD: +38.2%)

THE CLOSING BELL-

The EGX30 fell 0.2% at yesterday’s close on turnover of EGP 11.0 bn (15.9% above the 90-day average). International investors were the sole net sellers. The index is up 28.2% YTD.

In the green: Heliopolis Housing (+3.1%), E-finance (+2.0%), and Eastern Company (+1.7%).

In the red: Misr Cement (-2.5%), TMG Holding (-2.3%), and Arabian Cement (-1.4%).

My Morning Routine: Josh North, owner’s representative and asset manager at TMG Golf

Josh North, owner’s representative and asset manager of TMG Golf. Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Josh North (LinkedIn), owner’s representative and asset manager for TMG Golf.

Edited excerpts from our conversation:

I’m an Englishman in Egypt, and I’ve been here long enough to know this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. I’ve been in the golf industry since I was 16, coming up through the British PGA as a professional player and coach before gradually shifting toward operations and management. That shift brought me to Egypt in 2007, and I haven’t left.

I arrived at 24 with a suitcase, a golf bag, and no particular plan beyond saying yes to an adventure. My previous boss worked with Marriott Hotels and Golf, and they needed a coaching professional at the JW Marriott in Cairo. I had no ties, I was frustrated with teaching in the rain in England, and I thought: why not? Egypt was warm, the people were extraordinary, and I fell in love with the place. Somewhere along the way, I also found my wife, who’s English, and now we have three boys, a couple of dogs, and a lot of suitcases.

My job is to sit between TMG’s ownership interests and the architects, contractors, and third-party operators who actually build and run the golf assets. The role demands fluency in multiple languages at once: the technical language of course design and agronomy, the commercial language of P&L and returns, and the operational language of hospitality. Each of our four properties is at a different stage, so no two days look alike, and the job never stops.

Each TMG project is completely distinct. Madinaty, where I started as pre-opening GM in 2019, has won Egypt’s best golf course five years running and Africa’s best for three. At the Four Seasons in Sharm El Sheikh, grass is going down on the course, the clubhouse is taking shape, and it will be a luxury resort golf experience under one of the world’s most recognizable hotel brands, aimed at the international golf tourism market we’re building. SouthMed on the North Coast is in the design stage, tailored to the Mediterranean coastal market. And then there’s the historic Mena House course redesign. With the Pyramids as the main story, we are not rushing it.

We are also actively working to make golf more accessible. Egypt currently has more golf courses than active golfers. After running the numbers, a full Topgolf franchise didn’t stack up financially, so we’re pursuing a similar high-entertainment, low-barrier format tailored for the Egyptian market: one designed to draw in families and non-traditional players.

I’m up at 6am — not by choice. I have a 6-month-old, a 2-year-old, and a 5-year-old. But I’ve learned over the years that I do my best work in those early hours, between 6 and 9am, before meetings take over. I try to get to the gym before the day starts demanding things of me. I’ve always been a glass-half-full, high-energy person, what the English call “gung ho,” and the gym is how I channel that. After the gym: coffee. Always coffee. Coffee and family are, without question, the two constants that never move regardless of what any given day throws at me.

The thing I’ve had to accept about hospitality is that your peak is everyone else’s off-peak. When people are off work, that’s when operations get busy, when situations arise, when things go sideways. Weekends aren’t weekends in the traditional sense. The only thing that’s genuinely forced me to switch off is having young children: phone on airplane mode for the bedtime routine, and you’re present. That is it. That is the work-life balance. A conundrum, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d be bored senseless at a nine-to-five.

International awareness is Egyptian golf’s biggest prospect. Golf tourists spend four times more than standard visitors. With year-round playable weather and a manageable dry heat, we recently held 90 meetings across 25 nationalities at the IAGTO convention in Malaga, alongside the Golf Federation and the Tourism Authority. We are now on an 18- to 36-month roadmap to convert those conversations into foreign-currency bookings.

When I get time to switch off, I play rugby. I know, an odd choice for a golfer. I played at school in England and joined Cairo Rugby when I arrived, which is also where I first met EnterpriseAM’s own Moustafa Bassiouny, some 17 years ago. Golf and rugby are polar opposites in energy: one calm and composed, the other decidedly not. That contrast is exactly the point. A great team sport, with great friendships, and a genuine escape.

For reading, I keep coming back to Robert Kiyosaki: Rich Dad Poor Dad and his podcasts for business mindset, or The Rugby Pod when I have the time.

The best advice I received came from my late stepfather, who passed away about 13 years ago. He told me that if you’re heading into an argument, always lead with “with all due respect.” It teaches you to acknowledge before you confront, to hold your ground without burning the relationship. In a role spent navigating the competing interests of owners, operators, and guests, that lesson has never left me.

CALENDAR

JULY

28-30 July (Tuesday-Thursday): EduGate, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

AUGUST

19 August (Wednesday): Connected Banking Summit, Fairmont Nile City Hotel Cairo.

20 August (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s fifth meeting of 2026.

26 August (Wednesday): Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.

SEPTEMBER

8-10 September (Tuesday-Thursday) El Alamein International Airshow, El Alamein International Airport.

10-12 September (Thursday-Saturday): Egyptian Entrepreneurship Sector Diagnostics Report Summit, El Gouna.

15 September (Tuesday): IMF to hold its eighth review of Egypt’s USD 8 bn EFF arrangement.

24 September (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s sixth meeting of 2026.

27-29 September (Sunday-Tuesday): Global Conference on Population, Health, and Human Development.

28-29 September (Monday-Tuesday): Egypt Mining Forum, St. Regis Hotel New Capital.

30 September - October 3 (Wednesday-Saturday): Cityscape, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

OCTOBER

5 October (Monday): The EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum.

6 October (Tuesday): Armed Forces Day.

10-11 October (Saturday-Sunday): Egypt Women’s Health Summit (EWHS), Cairo Marriott Hotel.

26-28 October (Monday-Wednesday): IEX Egypt, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

29 October (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s seventh meeting of 2026.

NOVEMBER

6-8 November (Friday-Sunday) : Global Entrepreneurship Festival, JW Marriott Hotel, New Cairo.

8-11 November (Sunday-Wednesday): Cairo ICT Forum.

DECEMBER

7-10 December (Monday-Thursday): Food Africa, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

17 December (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s eighth meeting of 2026.

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

Mid-August: IMF Board expected to decide on the seventh review of the loan program.

2H 2026: Operations at Deli Glass Co’s new USD 70 mn glassware factory kick off.

2026: The Egyptian-American Economic Forum.

4Q 2026: Banque du Caire IPO.

2027

20 January-7 February: Egypt to host the African Games.

1-3 February (Monday-Wednesday): Agri Expo, Cairo International Convention Center.

April 2027: Tenth of Ramadan dry port and logistics hub to begin operations.

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

2027: Egypt to host EBRD’s annual meetings.

2027: Egypt-EU Summit 2027.

End of 2027: Trial operations at the Dabaa nuclear power plant expected to take place.

September 2028: First unit of the Dabaa nuclear power plant begins operations.

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