A Saudi-Egyptian consortium plans a SAR 1 bn real estate fund

Good morning, everyone. We’ve got two reads for you today about how Egyptian companies are putting fresh capital to work — one at the scale of the national grid and another at the scale of a single factory floor.

But first, we have a follow-up on the US Treasury Department’s proposed sanctions on the UAE outpost of Banque Misr. The Central Bank of the UAE and the Central Bank of Egypt issued a joint statement affirming “full and continuous cooperation and coordination between them with regard to the branches of Banque Misr in the UAE conducting all their business as usual,” adding that the branches will take all necessary actions and measures within the period specified for that purpose. The UAE branch has thirty days from the warning was issued on Friday to provide comment, so we’re keeping an eye out for how they respond.

Back to batteries, the Huawei story is the bigger read. The Electricity Ministry is advancing plans to build 4 GWh of battery storage, financed in EGP, with Huawei Egypt as the partner. The plan covers under a third of Egypt’s 14.3 GWh of storage it wants to build by 2028, as outlined in its renewable roadmap, and with renewable capacity set to triple in the same period, the math is crunching fast.

On the factory floor, Future Care for Medical Industries, which was just promoted to the main market, is building a medical-sterilization products factory for up to EGP 100 mn, targeting Gulf and Africa export sales. Half the bill comes from the same capital increase it raised to make it to the main board in the first place. The other half of the financing is still to come.

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The Chinese takeover with Ankush Arora: When Chinese cars first appeared in Egypt around a decade ago, they were met with backlash. Now, they’re everywhere. Why? And how?

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Our REIF pipeline just got a Saudi entrant

A Saudi-Egyptian consortium is setting up a real estate investment fund (REIF), branded Asl, spanning Egypt and KSA — and plans to deploy up to SAR 1 bn (c. USD 266.7 mn) here in its first year, through Asl Holding, with a focus on real estate and hospitality, Chairman Haitham El Sherbiny told Al Arabiya. The plan lands a week after Asl Holding acquired local developer Zurich Developments and Saudi contractor Alkayan, which between them carry a stated investment value of roughly EGP 50 bn. Neither transaction’s price has been disclosed.

What’s still being set up: Asl Holding is in the final stages of securing Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) approval to become a holding company in Egypt — a vehicle to develop and manage the acquired companies’ projects, CEO Ahmed Attia said. That approval is separate from the fund itself, which would need its own FRA license before it can raise money.

IN CONTEXT- Six licensed REIFs held combined net assets of roughly EGP 12.6 bn at the end of 2Q 2026, up from EGP 9 bn a quarter earlier, with the FRA reviewing more than 20 new applications on top of the 23 already pending, an FRA official told EnterpriseAM earlier this month.

The plan: Asl Holding is targeting 1k new hotel keys over three years and weighing a move into the Red Sea, bringing in international operators to run the rooms. Its portfolio spans seven projects across New Damietta, New Mansoura, Sheikh Zayed, and New Cairo, where it holds a 35-feddan plot. A Fifth Settlement launch is due in October and a second Sheikh Zayed project before year-end.

BACKGROUND- The state is counting on private money for almost all of its tourism buildout, with hotel acquisitions and partnerships expected to do much of the heavy lifting on new capacity. Of the EGP 118.5 bn in tourism and antiquities investment planned for FY 2026/27, private investors are expected to put up EGP 117.8 bn — 99% of it — according to a government document seen by EnterpriseAM. The market added some 6k rooms in 1H 2026 alone.

Another pin on Taqa’s regional map

EGX-listed Taqa Arabia is making its first move into Jordan, with a 14-km natural gas pipeline for Al Rawdah Industrial City in the Ma’an Development Area, according to an EGX disclosure (pdf). The company signed the contract with Jordan’s Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry to supply and build the line, and its board approved setting up a Jordanian branch earlier this month to run the operation.

The pipeline is one leg of a bigger, Abu Dhabi-funded package. It falls under a USD 70 mn program backed by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development to connect two Jordanian industrial cities — Al Rawdah and Al Muwaqqar — to natural gas, according to a statement from Jordan’s energy ministry. Taqa Arabia holds only the Al Rawdah leg, while the sister Al Muwaqqar project went to a consortium of Petrojet and Jordan’s Ahmad Yousef Al Tarawneh, under a USD 22.7 mn contract announced by the oil ministry on Thursday. Neither Taqa Arabia nor Amman has said how much of the USD 70 mn is Taqa’s, and the company did not offer more information when we reached out.

IN CONTEXT- Jordan is the latest leg of Taqa’s regional gas push. Just last week, subsidiary Rosetta Energy Solutions signed a binding agreement, targeting commercial operations in 2027. Outside Egypt, Taqa Arabia says it currently operates in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Pakistan.

PSA-

WEATHER- It’s a tad easier to bear in Cairo today, with a high of 34°C and a low of 24°C, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s a bit cooler in Alexandria, with a high of 32°C and a low of 23°C.

The big story abroad

In the first US strike on Iran in over a month, US forces targeted two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz. US officials called the action a preemptive strike, reporting that Iranian forces were preparing to deploy sea mines into the waterway. Iran responded by launching missiles toward Jordan, though they were reportedly intercepted.

In the M&A scene: Ins. broker and consulting firm Aon is closing in on an agreement to acquire KKR-owned ins. broker USI for around USD 17 bn, expanding Aon's ability to serve midsize businesses. The move — the latest in a spate of big exits for KKR — is projected to be accretive to earnings per share starting in 2028.

Shein’s value shrinks pre-IPO: China’s fast fashion giant Shein is on track to go public tomorrow at a valuation amounting roughly one quarter of its 2022 value of USD 100 bn. The decline coincides with ebbing investor enthusiasm for Chinese consumer IPOs, as high-profile AI debuts stole the market's attention over the past year.

*** It’s Blackboard day: We have our weekly look at the business of education in Egypt, from pre-K through the highest reaches of higher ed.

In today’s issue: We look into how a one-point jump in Egypt’s medical school cutoff slashes acceptances by 10%.