MNT-Halan’s local arm secured a temporary EGX main-board listing

Good morning, wonderful people. It’s shaping up to be a very big news week indeed.

UP FIRST- Fintech giant MNT-Halan is readying a blockbuster IPO that we expect will be the largest offering to hit the EGX in years. The most boring of regulatory procedures at the EGX wrapped yesterday, setting the stage for an offering that market insiders have been eagerly awaiting.

WATCH THIS SPACE- Are ties between Cairo and Riyadh warming? Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is expected in Cairo today to meet with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi. The sit-down comes as Saudi forces exchange fire with Yemen’s Houthis. El Sisi is also meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who’s in town for a two-day visit.

ALSO THIS MORNING: We’ve got stories from two very different Egyptian businesses — one writing code in Cairo, the other making drugs for the world — who are asking the same question: Can we marshal the capital we need to go global?

One of them got its answer, and it came from Paris. Cairo AI company Synapse Analytics just got a boost from a Paris-based VC and our friends at Algebra Ventures, among others, closing a USD 13 mn round that the company’s CEO tells us will give him three years of runway to build product and expand across the GCC, Africa, and Latin America.

Egyptian pharma players, meanwhile, are still waiting for their ship to come on. Companies in the industry say they have the demand lined up in export markets. What they don’t have is readily available credit built for how the sector actually spends: buying raw materials, manufacturing, and stockpiling inventory before the export revenue comes in.

^^ We’ve all of this and more, below.

Introducing HALN.CA

The Egyptian arm of MNT-Halan lined up approval yesterday from the EGX for what looks set to be a blockbuster IPO that’s being closely watched by investors well beyond Cairo. Shares of MNT Tech Holding for Financial Investments will trade on the big board under the ticker HALN.CA.

MNT-Halan has been on the road in recent months testing market appetite, making in-person and virtual stops in the Gulf, London, the United States, and beyond. One investor we spoke with in late summer described the early look presentation as “very compelling.”

We expect the transaction to hit the market soon. Bloomberg reported in June that the company was eyeing an IPO as early as this year, though its plans could change. The EGX listing committee gave MNT until mid-March to complete the transaction.

SOUND SMART- Only the Egyptian unit is going public. The parent company that also owns arms in Pakistan, Turkey, and the UAE will remain private. Our friends at EFG Hermes have the mandate to manage the transaction and have been joined by Citi. They were pitching investors on a valuation of up to USD 1 bn for the Egypt business when they first started testing the waters back in June.

OUR TAKE- This is exactly what the EGX needs. The market had a great 2025 and was up just north of 30% YTD as of yesterday’s close — but the party has been dominated by retail and institutional investors from Egypt. Outside of a few big moves on existing market darlings (cf: ADQ taking a big stake in CIB back in 2022), international institutional investors have largely sat on the sidelines. They need a big listing in a compelling name to draw them back.

REFRESHER- MNT filed its listing application last week. The company says it has disbursed funding worth more than USD 15.5 bn and serves over 8 mn customers across micro, SME, consumer, and nano lending, payments, and more recently brokerage and a real estate fund. The parent company reported a USD 1.4 bn valuation in June on the first close of a round led by Al Ahly Capital, the first time a commercial bank has taken equity in the business.

Don’t expect a full exit for some early investors: Anyone holding at least 10% at listing — or whoever replaces them on the shareholder register — has to hang on to 51% of their stake for a lock-up that lasts at least two financial years.

Morning Drive just turned one! And we’re celebrating with new artwork and a few guest appearances. Listen to today’s episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Anghami.

Morning Drive is your daily download of the essential headlines shaping Egypt. A condensed version of the newsletter in audio form. Hosted by ‘Synthetic Salma’ — an AI-powered version of our own executive editor, Salma.

Suez, cautiously

Shipping lines Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd will reroute four more of their Gemini joint container services — AE5, AE11, AE12, and ME2 — through the Suez Canal instead of around the Cape of Good Hope, according to a statement from Maersk.

The comeback timeline: Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd first routed their joint AE15 service back through the canal in July, before the Danish liner returned its MECL and WAF6 services the same month. The two carriers then shifted their AE19 Gemini service back through Suez last month. This is now the largest single chunk of the Gemini network to move back at once — previous returns came one or two services at a time.

But the Cape isn’t being retired just yet: Maersk said any further changes to the Gemini network will remain dependent on stability in the Middle East and the absence of renewed escalation — the same contingency the carriers laid out when they first started moving services back through Suez earlier this summer. In the past few days, Houthi forces seized the port of Mokha and key islands in the Bab Al Mandab Strait, tightening their grip on the southern entrance to the Red Sea. The group said non-Saudi shipping remains safe — but the advance shows how quickly the security picture can shift.

They’re not alone: MSC will resume westbound Suez Canal transits on its Indusa service connecting India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, the USA, and Mexico, continuing a partial restoration of the route across a number of East-West loops, according to a statement. Eastbound cargo routes will maintain their operations via the Cape of Good Hope.

Back to the global debt market

The Finance Ministry is weighing a return to the international debt market between October and December, tapping foreign funding aimed at narrowing the financing gap, a senior government official tells EnterpriseAM. Last week, the cabinet approved measures under the ministry’s FY 2026-27 issuance plan, targeting some USD 3 bn of international bonds — a mix of conventional and “innovative” instruments, plus credit-guaranteed panda bonds — to be executed as investor demand and market conditions allow.

What comes first remains undecided: “It’s not clear yet what the first issuance will be, as we’re working on several diverse international issuances at once — Eurobonds, sukuk, and panda bonds — which by nature take time,” the source says.

The lean is toward cheap money. Concessional and semi-concessional external finance is set to make up 66-72% of total external borrowing this year, against 28-34% from pricier capital-market bonds like Eurobonds, per a ministry strategy EnterpriseAM has seen. The diversification targets new markets and low-cost, long-tenor instruments, such as development-bank-guaranteed issues.

The backdrop: The ministry is managing some USD 7-7.5 bn in external debt obligations and amortizations this fiscal year, the source says — between USD 4-4.5 bn in concessional development loans and about USD 3 bn in maturities on conventional bonds, sukuk, and panda bonds.

The EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum is less than a month away — and here’s some of what’s shaping up on the agenda:

• Where AI fits on the list of topics keeping CEOs awake at night
• What AI means for your company, your team, your job, and your family
• What’s the AI opportunity for Egypt
• Building the AI infrastructure

Join us on 5 October in Cairo. Attendance is by invitation only, and seats are filling up quickly.

Request your invitation here.

PSA-

WEATHER- It’s a touch hotter today in Cairo, with a high of 36°C and a low of 23°C, according to our favorite weather app.

It’ll be a little cooler in Alexandria, with a high of 32°C and a low of 23°C.

The big story abroad

AI-linked stocks around the world dropped on Monday after industry leaders warned of potential dire consequences of rapid AI development. Wall Street’s tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 dropped to a six-week low driven by a chip stock selloff before paring losses to 0.4%, while the Dow shed 152 points. Nvidia slid 3.4% — weighed down by its sheer market size — despite soaring income driven by AI chip demand.

More climate cuts: The Trump administration will cut Biden-era climate rules limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants by forcing coal- and gas-fired power sites to use technologies like carbon capture. The Environmental Protection Agency — which stands to save more than USD 300 bn through the measure — argued that global greenhouse gas harms are too remote and uncertain to tie to US power plants, placing them outside Clean Air Act authority.

East-West mineral race: The Pentagon will acquire a near-20% stake in Elmet Group through a USD 450 mn investment, expanding the Trump administration’s push to secure critical mineral supplies outside China. The move aims to boost domestic manufacturing of tungsten — a key metal used in military hardware — and expand long-term access to feedstock, sending Elmet's shares surging up to 55%.

*** It’s Going Green day — your weekly briefing of all things green in Egypt: EnterpriseAM’s green economy vertical focuses each Tuesday on the business of renewable energy and sustainable practices in Egypt, everything from solar and wind energy through to water, waste management, sustainable building practices and how you can make your business greener, whatever the sector.

In today’s issue: We look into the USD 45 mn Egypt is asking donors for reef conservation — and why it can’t yet say where the fees it already collects have gone.