B Investments sold another 6.5% of Gourmet at more than double its IPO price

Good morning, lovely people. Two tech stories today — one about whether our outsourcing boom can adapt to AI, and another about a Cairo-born fintech that just got a vote of confidence from two sovereign funds.

The outsourcing industry is growing fast, but AI might pose a problem. Export revenue is climbing, new global names are setting up shop, and ITIDA is already drafting its next strategy. The looming issue is whether job growth can keep pace with export growth as AI reshapes the industry. ITIDA CEO Ahmed El Zaher is confident, but the pattern from India — which is several years ahead of Egypt on this curve — offers early signals of how the job-export balance might evolve. Our conversation with El Zaher is below in the news well.

And on startups, Mubadala, British International Investment, and the EBRD are writing checks for Paymob. The company is looking to expand across the region, and the checks bridge a growth-stage funding gap that regional startups struggle to cross.

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With the EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum two weeks away, here's what's shaping up on the agenda:

• Where does AI fit on the list of topics keeping CEOs awake at night as they plan their strategies for 2027 and beyond?
• Is there really an AI opportunity for Egypt?
• An industry insider warns that your company is about to get attacked.
• What does AI mean for your company, your team, and your job?
• What does AI mean for your family — from what your kids should be studying to how to protect aging parents from scams and disinformation

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

Request your invitation here.

Second helpings

Another 6.5% of Gourmet changed hands just seven months after its blockbuster IPO, with B Investments Holding selling 26 mn shares for EGP 416.2 mn, cutting its stake in the premium grocer to 33.5%, B Investments said in a bourse disclosure (pdf). The sale prices the shares at EGP 16 apiece, more than double Gourmet’s EGP 6.90 final IPO price, and takes B Investments below the 40% stake it came out of the listing with. The private equity firm first bought 40% of Gourmet for EGP 65 mn in 2018, later lifting its stake to 53% through a capital increase before trimming it in the float. Beltone Securities Brokerage executed the sale, Gourmet said in a separate filing (pdf).

The disclosures didn’t name the buyer, clarify whether the stake changed hands as a block or through the order book, or indicate whether more selling is coming. B Investments — Gourmet’s controlling shareholder before the IPO — has been on an active monetization run this year, exiting Infinity Solar in July and gearing up pharmacy chain El Ezaby for an IPO of its own.

REFRESHER- Gourmet went public earlier this year after B Investments and four individual shareholders sold 190.5 mn shares, good for 47.6% of the company. The all-secondary offering raised close to EGP 1.3 bn and valued the grocer at some EGP 2.8 bn, with EFG Hermes acting as sole global coordinator and bookrunner.

Billet to bourse

Local steelmaker Metad Helwan for Metal Rolling is eyeing an EGP 1 bn IPO on the EGX in 2H 2027, with plans to offer a 15-30% stake, Al Borsa reports, citing Chairman Sherif Ayad. The company is still studying the transaction and has yet to appoint a financial adviser or bookrunner. Taken at face value, the targeted proceeds and stake range imply a valuation of anywhere between EGP 3.3 bn and EGP 6.7 bn.

The proceeds are going into steel: The IPO would fund part of an EGP 1.5-2 bn investment plan, Ayad said, including lifting monthly output at the company’s plant to 20k tons from around 15k currently. Metad Helwan, founded in 1973, is a re-roller rather than an integrated steelmaker. It buys billet and rolls it into ribbed rebar, beams, angles, and flats under 80 mm, putting it a tier below the Ezz Steel and Beshay end of the market.

Ayad has previously told Al Borsa the company is targeting EGP 5.5 bn in turnover this year, up from EGP 5 bn in 2025, while higher energy prices have pushed it to raise product prices by 10-15%.

REFRESHER- Two private IPOs have cleared the EGX this year, with the queue behind them largely dominated by state offerings. Premium grocer Gourmet made its debut in February, followed by energy solutions firm Korra Energi in June. Both IPOs were sell-downs of existing shares rather than new capital for the companies.

Plan B

Egypt plans to build its first strategic crude oil reserve of some 16 mn barrels by year-end, Asharq Business reports, citing an anonymous government source. The reserve would comprise additional supplies of 10 mn barrels from Libya and another 6 mn barrels from Iraq, separate from Egypt’s regular monthly supplies, the source said.

BACKGROUND- We reported back in April that the Egyptian government agreed to purchase 3% of Libya’s monthly oil output at international prices, with Libya agreeing to flexible payment terms, covering between 1 mn and 1.2 mn barrels per month.

How the 6 mn barrels earmarked for Egypt’s reserve would move remains unclear: Iraq’s crude exports have been among the region’s most disrupted since Hormuz shut down, falling to a fraction of pre-war levels before recovering to roughly a third of pre-war exports in 1H 2026. Baghdad has since clawed back some capacity through Adnoc’s cross-strait shuttling runs, an Iranian exemption for Iraqi oil shipments, and ship-to-ship pickup arrangements near Oman. But export capacity remains well below pre-war levels, even with those workarounds.

The price tag: The crude is contracted at around USD 85 per barrel, putting the total cost at nearly USD 1.36 bn before shipping, storage, and ins. — the source didn’t break out pricing by origin, so it’s unclear whether that rate applies evenly to both the Libyan and Iraqi barrels. The targeted reserve would equal some 2.3 months of Egypt’s reported regular crude supplies of 7 mn barrels a month, by our calculation — a measure of supply cover, not total domestic oil consumption.

Why it matters: Holding crude in reserve would give refineries feedstock to draw on when shipments are delayed, adding a buffer further up the fuel supply chain alongside stocks of finished petroleum products.

Egypt is weathering the storm well, IMF says

Egypt’s economy defied expectations amid regional shocks due to prompt government action, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a statement. The international lender attributed the resilience to specific policies, including exchange rate flexibility, energy price adjustments, and spending restraint, which prevented “one of the region’s largest recent shocks” from resulting in a broader economic downturn.

The IMF pointed to several indicators of economic robustness, including the country’s issuance of a USD 1 bn eurobond in May that was five times oversubscribed and a June issuance of a USD 500 mn Samurai bond. The Fund also cited Egypt’s sovereign risk premium falling to its lowest level since 2014 last month.

Vulnerabilities remain: The lender pointed to economic weaknesses — high public debt and heavy reliance on short-maturity financing keep near-term gross financing needs around 40% of GDP. Meanwhile, elevated bank exposure to the government and an excessively high state footprint continue to weigh on the broader economy, the IMF said.

Data point

USD 29.7 bn — that’s how much remittances from Egyptians working abroad reached in the first seven months of 2026, up 28.1% y-o-y from USD 23.2 bn, according to CBE data (pdf). July alone brought in c. USD 4.5 bn, up 20% from USD 3.8 bn a year earlier.

PSA-

WEATHER- Yet another cooler summer day ahead in Cairo, with a high of 32 °C and a low of 23°C, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s even nicer in Alexandria, with a high of 31°C and a low of 22°C.

The big story abroad

In the absence of a single story dominating the international press, several developments have taken the spotlight. Here are the most pressing updates making the rounds this morning.

JP Morgan Asset Management has signed an agreement with the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) to establish a USD 20 bn multi-asset strategic partnership, which will span public and private equities and credit. The effort includes a USD 15 bn long-term public equities mandate for QIA and a USD 5 bn private markets initiative targeting established US middle-market companies.

US bases on Greenland? The Trump administration is reportedly looking to open two military bases in Greenland as per a trilateral agreement expected to be signed with Denmark and the Greenlandic government today. The locations include a former Cold War-era base in southern Greenland and a facility on the east coast.

AI will reshape credit ratings + ins., S&P says: Variations in how quickly financial institutions adopt AI, manage governance, and prepare operationally mean the technology will play a growing role in either bolstering or eroding their credit standing in the coming years, S&P Ratings said in a report. Ins. players are also expected to be swept up in the new AI-powered status quo, with many of the largest multiline insurers and reinsurers already transitioning to formal AI integration.

*** 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 Egypt’s plastic bag fee, which has been collected since June 2025 with no public accounting— and why CBAM exporters keep their own numbers just as quiet.