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Tuesday, 13 Oct 2026

What We’re Tracking Today
The Big Story Today
Industry
Industry
Also On Our Radar
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The EGX may be getting its first berry grower in 1Q 2027

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Today at a glance

1

The Big Story Today

Agriventure plans to go public on the EGX in 1Q 2027.
2

Industry

Billet-duty dispute heads to court as rolling mills sue to scrap anti-dumping duties.
3

Industry

Elsewedy Electric proposes EV assembly plant in Algeria under Elsewedy Ezz brand.
4

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

MNT-Halan’s retail book is 2.68x covered on Sunday, with four more sessions to go.
5

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

Dutch court dismisses petition to investigate OCI Global, but Value8’s challenge is still pending.
6

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

CBE bars banks from funding consumer-finance purchases of gold, silver, or platinum.
7

Also on our Radar

Hyde Park buys 415 feddans of the historic Dream Land site in 6th of October City.
8

PLANET FINANCE

MENA startups set a mega-round record in 3Q as the early-stage deal base thinned 45%.
9

Going Green

What would it take to get black cloud fires to zero?

Tuesday, 13 Oct 2026

What We’re Tracking Today
The Big Story Today
Industry
Industry
Also On Our Radar
Planet Finance
Going Green
Calendar
1

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

MNT-Halan’s retail book is 2.68x covered, with EGP 3.16 bn of orders for an EGP 1.18 bn tranche.

Good morning, folks. Ambition is the theme in today’s issue, and it starts with two stories you will read here first: a berry grower taking its export story public and a steel industry heading to court over its future. Elsewedy Electric, meanwhile, is eyeing an EV assembly plant in Algeria.

Up first: Agriventure, Egypt’s first specialized blueberry producer and exporter, plans to list on the EGX in 1Q 2027, the board has approved it and an investment bank is on board. A rare chance for EGX investors to buy into local commercial farming directly. We spoke with CEO Ali Diab about the plan, the investors behind it, and why a farm wants to be a public company.

The dispute over anti-dumping duties on billet imports is going to court on 14 November. Both rolling mills and integrated producers think the evidence points in their favor. We spoke to the rolling mills and integrated producers to lay out where each camp is digging in.

Elsewedy Electric wants to build EVs in Algeria. The group has submitted a feasibility study for an electric and hybrid vehicle assembly plant, which borrows the Elsewedy Ezz model it already runs in Egypt. There’s no site or timeline yet, but the plan is for the plant to export a quarter of its output to about 20 markets.

***

ARE YOU MORE OF A LISTENER? Morning Drive is a 10-minute summary of today’s issue crafted for you to enjoy with your morning coffee, while getting the kids ready for school, or driving through the morning rush. And if you like it, tell your friends to tell their friends. They can find us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever they get their podcasts.

***

The Gulf’s sovereign funds and largest companies are committing bns to AI infrastructure at home and to AI companies in the US and beyond. EnterpriseAM AI + Innovation reports on where that capital goes, who controls it and what it is actually buying.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we also cover the startups and established firms across MENA putting AI to work, and how it is changing jobs, education and the way business runs.

It’s sharp, analytical and skeptical journalism that ignores hype and is laser-focused on informing our readers, not pleasing our sources.

Sign up here to be among the first to get it straight to your inbox.

Filling up

MNT-Halan’s retail book is already oversubscribed with four sessions to run: Retail investors bid for some 128.81 mn shares in MNT Tech Holding for Financial Investments, the Egyptian arm of fintech group MNT-Halan, by the end of Sunday’s session — enough to cover the 48 mn-share retail tranche 2.68x, according to EGX screen data cited by Arab Finance. That’s up from 1.41x, or 67.66 mn shares, on Wednesday, putting the value of orders at roughly EGP 3.16 bn for a tranche worth just EGP 1.18 bn at the offer price. Retail subscriptions remain open until 15 October.

More upside than meets the eye: Al Ostool Securities Brokerage has put a fair value of EGP 29.74-35.26 per share on MNT Tech Holding, well above the EGP 24.50 offer price, according to its research note. That gives investors a potential upside of 21.4-43.9% and puts the IPO at a 17.6-30.5% discount to Ostool’s valuation, by our math. The prospectus, meanwhile, puts that discount at just 5.5%, based on BDO Keys’ EGP 25.92 fair value. Founder and CEO Mounir Nakhla had pitched a discount at the EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum, saying “an IPO by definition is priced at a discount.”

REFRESHER- MNT Investments B.V. is selling some 320 mn existing shares, good for 20% of its Egypt arm, in an EGP 7.84 bn offering. The private placement for the remaining 272 mn shares closes today, with CIB and London’s Redwheel cornerstoning more than a third of the base offering. Trading is expected to start on 20 October. EFG Hermes and Citi are joint global coordinators and bookrunners.

One petition down

Dutch court throws out a shareholder bid to investigate OCI Global: The Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal dismissed a petition brought by Dutch retail investor association VEB and shareholder Smits, ordering them to pay jointly and severally some EUR 18k in administrative costs, Amsterdam-listed OCI Global said in a statement (pdf) earlier this month. OCI is controlled by Egyptian bn’aire Nassef Sawiris, who also controls EGX- and ADX-listed Orascom Construction (ORAS). The two companies are looking to merge into an Abu Dhabi-based infrastructure platform, and the ruling clears one regulatory challenge ahead of OCI’s shareholder vote in 17 days — though it doesn’t touch the separate petition Dutch investment company Value8 filed with the same court last month.

ORAS shareholders have already approved the merger — OCI holders would get 0.4634 ORAS shares for every OCI share — but it hit a wall over Sawiris’ position on both sides of the transaction. The Dutch court was concerned that OCI’s minority shareholders would be left holding Abu Dhabi-listed shares that most Dutch brokers can’t trade, with no option to cashout.

ICYMI- That’s where NNS Holding came in. The Cyprus-incorporated arm of Sawiris’ family office is offering EUR 4.10 incash for every OCI share, giving investors an alternative to the merger. But the merger can’t be completed until NNS has made the offer, declared it unconditional, and settled it — a condition the court-appointed directors attached at a shareholders’ meeting (pdf) in July. The deadline to accept the offer is 17 November, and NNS can extend it once by up to 10 weeks.

CBE tightens BNPL gold financing

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) instructed banks not to grant, renew, or allow use of credit facilities of consumer finance companies to finance transactions involving gold bullion, jewelry, silver, and platinum, according to a circular (pdf) signed by Deputy Governor Tarek El Kholy yesterday. Existing balances must be liquidated and cannot be redrawn.

IN CONTEXT- The circular builds on an existing CBE framework: a September 2025 directive requiring banks to obtain a clearance letter from the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) confirming compliance before extending credit facilities or securitization to any FRA-regulated company. It was reinforced in April 2026 with a bar on lending to NBFIs not fully coded with the CBE and reporting to I-Score. The trigger was the FRA’s 16 September circular banning consumer finance companies from financing gold and precious metals — classified as investment instruments, not consumer goods — which meant any company still doing so would fail the FRA clearance check, automatically cutting off bank funding under the existing rules.

Action at the forum

Nevera Egypt will formally launch during the Egypt Forum sessions next week (which run 19-24 October), with the government pitching the integrated media city in West Cairo as a flagship investment prospect to investors, a senior government official tells EnterpriseAM. The state-backed company, set up to develop the megaproject near the Pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum, has completed its incorporation and is ready for the offer, having already met with several investors and developers ahead of the offering.

About the project: Nevera Egypt is building a multi-mn-sqm hub around an integrated media city, combining studios, hotels, homes, logistics, and retail in West Cairo. The plan includes a 400k-sqm studio zone, 60k residential units, and 18 hotels of about 5k keys in the short term and roughly 15k hotel units over the longer term. Development runs on a three-tier media center: national for local producers, regional for MENA-focused companies, and a global hub above 1 mn sqm for international production houses. The company is backed by the Tahya Misr Fund, the Administrative Capital for Urban Development, the New Urban Communities Authority, and private-sector partners.

Why it matters: The launch is the trigger for the wider redevelopment of Nazlet El Semman and El Mansouria, linking the area to the museum and the Pyramids Plateau, and extending to Sphinx International Airport, a government official tells us. The area has been seeing rising hotel demand since the Grand Egyptian Museum opened, and the project targets international hospitality brands as part of a push to ease Greater Cairo’s room shortage, according to the official.

The gas crunch gave Egypt every reason to speed up its energy transition, and the question now is who builds it and who pays for it.

Power Trip, our four-part signature series, turns this week to the transition and the private developers now building much of Egypt’s new power.

Issue II looks at how the deals behind these projects work, who is lending to them, and why the country is building a nuclear plant at El Dabaa alongside its solar and wind farms. We also look at whether the regional crisis has finally pushed industry toward renewables, and at the factories Egypt is counting on to build its own panels, batteries, and turbines.

Coming straight to your inbox tomorrow, Wednesday, 14 October.

PSA-

WEATHER- Cairo is holding steady today, with a high of 30°C, and a low of 20°C — same as yesterday, according to our favorite weather app. Expect some morning fog on the roads and a slight chance of light rain.

It’s the same story on the coast in Alexandria too, with a high of 30°C and a low of 20°C.

The big story abroad

French President Emmanuel Macron said a major agreement on EU car policy would be finalized soon to protect the bloc’s automotive industry against fierce Chinese competition. Paris and Berlin are jointly working on the agreement, which is expected to delay the gradual end of combustion engines and support car production in Europe.

Tech investment firm Ithaca Holdings is in talks to take dating-app company Bumble private for around USD 1 bn. Bumble — whose market value stood at around USD 335 mn last Friday — has seen its shares drop over 90% since going public in 2021. Ithaca plans to use advanced technologies, including AI, across its investments.

Meta has launched Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, describing them as its “most capable AI models yet”, as it ramps up its efforts to compete with Anthropic and OpenAI. Subscribers will be the first to see Muse Wonder, while the higher-capacity Muse Wonder Full model is currently available only to Muse Code subscribers.

*** 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 at what it would take to get the black cloud’s straw fires to zero after they fell 24.8% in the season’s first five weeks compared with the same period in 2025.

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Where ideas, industries and perspectives come together.

This October, Somabay welcomes leading voices from Egypt, the region and beyond, as the Narrative Summit marks its milestone tenth edition.

Narrative sits at the intersection of private-sector ambition, government policy, investment, culture, media and tourism — bringing together the people and perspectives influencing Egypt’s growth, identity and global positioning.

Set against the backdrop of Somabay, the summit creates a space for meaningful dialogue, fresh perspectives and connections that can translate ideas into impact.

Ten editions. One destination. Conversations that shape a decade.

2

The Big Story Today

Agriventure plans to go public on EGX in 1Q 2027

EXCLUSIVE- Agriventure, which grows blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries for export, plans to go public on the EGX in 1Q 2027, co-founder and CEO Ali Diab tells EnterpriseAM. The board has approved the listing and assigned an investment bank to take the company public, Diab says, without naming it. “It’s no longer a wish; it’s a board mandate,” he tells us. The company farms about 6.5k acres across five sites in Dabaa, Fayoum, and Khatatba, of which roughly 3.2k acres are net growing area. Diab didn’t disclose the size of the offering or a target valuation.

Why it matters: An Agriventure IPO would give EGX investors a rare chance to buy directly into local commercial farming through a public offering. The exchange is home to a handful of agri-related businesses — few of them pure-play growers — but none of them recently came to market through a conventional IPO. The nearest comparable, Gogreen for Agricultural Investment, which cultivates 12k feddans of jojoba, began trading in February 2025 without a subscription, since it already met the EGX’s freefloat and shareholder thresholds — an 11.4% float held by 340 shareholders. It opened at a fair-value reference price rather than one set by a book. Lotus for Agricultural Investments took the same route, debuting on the SME market in 2023, before transferring to the main market in 2024. There’s also no dedicated agriculture sector on the exchange; growers sit under Food, Beverages, and Tobacco — roughly 6% of market cap, and dominated by mills, dairy, and tobacco.

Meet the IPO-hopeful: Agriventure was founded by Ali Diab (LinkedIn) and Karim Hendi (LinkedIn), who got into berries with sister company Fresh & More in 2011 before moving into commercial blueberry production during the pandemic, which Diab says made the company Egypt’s first specialized and pure-play commercial producer and exporter of blueberries. “It’s not an acquisition; it’s a company that was built from the roots,” Diab says, adding that he aspires to rival Morocco’s dominance in the regional berry market within the next two years.

Growing greenbacks is the real draw: The company exports 99% of its harvest — roughly 80% to the UK and European retailers, with the remainder sent to the Gulf, Russia, and the Far East — and sells the remaining 1% locally under its Nature’s Pick brand, Diab tells us. That profile is what carried Egyptian private equity (PE) portfolios through the EGP float: exporters with hard-currency revenue were shielded, Ezdehar founder and Managing Director Emad Barsoum told us this week, adding that his next fund is being built around exports as a hedge.

The company already has the PE seal of approval: Diab and Hendi hold a combined 60% in the company. Morpho Investments — the PE firm founded by former SFE executives CEO Ayman Soliman (LinkedIn) and Education, Food, & Agriculture CEO Ihab Rizk (LinkedIn) — backed the company in May 2025 to fund expansion into Saudi Arabia and Oman. Rizk chairs the board, and Soliman sits on it. Mobica Chairman and CEO Mohamed Farouk (LinkedIn) holds about 16%, while Morpho’s stake wasn’t disclosed.

A place beyond the berries: The berry grower is also moving into substrate manufacturing with Finland’s Kekkilä-BVB, whose material it has distributed exclusively in Egypt for the past three years, with an eye on exporting to Gulf growers — a second revenue line alongside the berry business, though it isn’t clear whether it sits inside the listing entity. As we’ve recently covered, localizing input supply chains and deploying substrate hydroponics is key to insulating growers against currency volatility and capturing higher export margins in Europe.

ZOOMING OUT- The timing tracks a busier bourse: Agriventure would be joining a market that has already seen premium grocer Gourmet and energy solutions provider Korra Energi IPO this year, with the highly anticipated offerings of MNT-Halan and Banque du Caire already underway — but where agriculture, and growers in particular, remain almost entirely unrepresented.

Catch our full My Morning Routine interview with Ali Diab on Thursday for a dive into his early morning habits, how AI and substrate tech drive Agriventure’s farms, and his philosophy on picking the right partner — in both business and life.

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3

Industry

Billet-duty dispute heads to court as rolling mills sue to scrap anti-dumping duties

EXCLUSIVE- The billet-duty dispute is heading to court. The Administrative Court will hear the first lawsuit filed by rolling mills against the government’s anti-dumping duties on billet imports on 14 November, industry sources tell EnterpriseAM. The court asked the Investment Ministry to submit data on how imports have affected the market and whether national industry has grown under the duties, before issuing a binding ruling on keeping or scrapping them.

Why it matters: The duties split Egypt’s steel industry down the middle. Rolling mills buy billet and roll it into rebar, while integrated producers like Ezz Steel make their own — making cheap imported billet a lifeline to one camp and a threat to the other. The ministry turned a temporary 200-day measure from September 2025 into a three-year duty in April 2026. It was set at 13.1% and steps down 1 percentage point a year from the measure’s start in September 2025, which puts it at about 12.1% now. The court must now weigh whether that protection was justified as each side says the evidence backs its case. We covered the rolling mills’ push to scrap the duties earlier this month as they prepared their case.

Two camps

Integrated producers are digging in. Sources at Ezz Steel, El Marakby, and Al Gioshy Steel tell EnterpriseAM the market has plenty of billet, not too little. On the supply side, local plants have 13.7 mn tons of capacity but only produce 8.8 mn — leaving around 5 mn tons of “idle investment” — and they already sell about 170k tons a month, more than the roughly 100k tons a month rolling mills need to buy. Billet is not a production input for integrated plants, which make their own, the sources add. So if rolling mills are running at only 53% of capacity (8.5 mn tons of output against 16 mn of capacity, per the integrated mills’ memo to the court), the sources argue the cause is weak demand and overcapacity across the sector, not restricted feedstock.

“The duties are meant to protect local industry from unfair price competition, not to restrict output or create a monopoly,” they say, arguing that billet enters Egypt under a zero customs tariff, meaning the safeguard duty is the only shield integrated mills have against imports that compete head-on with their rebar — and the stakes are concentrated because billet represents 89-94% of the final rebar price globally, so rolling adds only about 10% in value.

Protecting the earlier stages of production is what keeps the whole chain alive, they say. The duties are not behind the price rises the sector has seen either. Rebar went from EGP 38.2k a ton in September to EGP 40.85k in October, but the integrated-mill sources point to energy and raw materials — industrial gas up 15% (USD 6.75 to 7.75 per mmBtu), electricity up more than 50%, scrap up USD 57 a ton (17%), according to their memo. “Protective duties are not the main reason behind higher steel prices,” they say.

Rolling mills read it differently: The duties “raised the cost of production inputs and threatened the continuity of the factories and the jobs they provide,” Cairo Chamber of Commerce head and El Ashry Steel Chairman Ayman El Ashry told us earlier. In our earlier coverage, he argued that the duties cut off affordable billet supply. He estimated that scrapping them could cut rebar prices by EGP 7k-10k a ton and help restart idle factories. The shortage they describe is not theoretical, according to former Metallurgical Industries Chamber head Mohamed Hanafy, who said 26 steel plants were short of billet as of March, with only six reporting sufficient feedstock.

The government in the middle: A government official tells EnterpriseAM the duties were imposed after “a thorough study of the market and the impact of dumped billet imports on industry,” and a committee is still reviewing how the duties have affected the various industrial sectors — it has not yet issued its report on the duties’ impact.

REMEMBER- The duties trace back to a complaint by integrated and semi-integrated producers — Ezz Steel, Suez Steel, and Egyptian Steel, which together account for roughly 80% of local production — over imports that jumped more than 10x between 2021 and 2024. Some producers asked for duties of 25%; the preliminary investigation recommended 16.2% in September 2025, before the final rate was set at 13.12% in April. This is not the first time this issue has reached the courts. In 2019, the Administrative Court annulled billet protective duties after a rolling-mills suit, before the state and integrated producers appealed.

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4

Industry

Elsewedy Electric proposes EV assembly plant in Algeria under Elsewedy Ezz brand

Elsewedy Electric submitted a feasibility study to Algeria’s Prime Minister’s Office to build an electric and hybrid vehicle assembly plant, Elsewedy Electric Algeria GM Mostafa Awad said on the sidelines of the NAPEC 2026 energy conference in Oran last Friday, according to Algerian press reports. The proposed facility would assemble vehicles under the Elsewedy Ezz brand, targeting an 80% electric and 20% petrol production split. The company aims for a 50-60% local integration rate, sourcing engines from German and Chinese suppliers while manufacturing other components locally. No site or commissioning timeline has been set.

Brand & capacity: Elsewedy plans to export 25% of the plant’s output to roughly 20 international markets — including the US, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Chile — targeting USD 25-30 mn in annual export revenues. The Algerian plant would replicate the Elsewedy Ezz assembly model the group built in Egypt — where Elsewedy Capital and Ezz El Arab first partnered to launch Ezz Elsewedy Automotive Factories and are now expanding their 6th of October complex to target over 80k vehicles annually.

Why it matters: Elsewedy is trying to “de-risk and diversify” supply chains, insulating itself from foreign-exchange volatility and regional trade bottlenecks, Confluence Consultants Head of Research Amandeep Ahuja tells EnterpriseAM. Algerian-assembled EVs could also offer a “cheaper alternative to European EV brands,” simplifying market entry into Spain and Italy while compounding pressure on European automakers already facing Chinese competition, Ahuja notes. For broader African markets, she sees the venture as a “new and exciting [prospect] for the green transition.” The move also aligns with Algeria’s national strategy to convert 30% of its domestic vehicle fleet to clean energy by 2030.

REMEMBER- The EV proposal builds on Elsewedy’s 15-year, USD 20 bn infrastructure presence in Algeria, allowing the firm to branch into automotive manufacturing. Elsewedy proposed an additional USD 1.3 bn investment package in Algeria’s industry, housing, tourism, and agriculture sectors in May, following a USD 2.5 bn multi-factory commitment signed in September 2025 covering electrical industries and water infrastructure.

What’s next: The company is awaiting regulatory approvals for a steel plant, an aluminum facility, and seven specialized manufacturing sites covering piping, PVC resin, fiber optics, center-pivot irrigation systems, and electrical transformers, for which Algerian authorities are currently evaluating land allocation.

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5

Also on our Radar

Hyde Park buys 415 feddans of historic Dream Land land in 6th of October City

Hyde Park Real Estate Development bought 415 feddans in the eastern expansions of 6th of October City (the historic Dream Land site) from the Egyptian Company for Real Estate Asset Management and Investment (Ecrami), according to a Cabinet statement. The sale covers about half of Ecrami’s 818-feddan Dream Land portfolio, National Bank of Egypt (NBE) CEO Mohamed El Etreby said on the sidelines of the signing. Amin Serag, MD of Hyde Park, said the project is the company’s largest in West Cairo and its fourth in the area, bringing its total to 10. The price was not disclosed.

Why it matters: The sale clears one of Egypt’s longest-running real estate disputes and distressed debts around the Dream Land site. The strategic structure matters more: NBE — which owns 83% of Ecrami alongside Banque Misr (17%), according to El Etreby — also holds a 24% stake in Hyde Park. That means the bank is liquidating a frozen asset and putting it back into the production cycle while holding onto a share of future development returns as a partner in the developer.

ALSO- Hyde Park subsidiary Founders Real Estate Marketing signed a long-term EGP 10 bn credit facility with Banque Misr, according to a press release (pdf). The eight-year financing will go toward acquiring one of the residential projects belonging to the New Urban Communities Authority, alongside funding operational costs tied to the project. Baker McKenzie acted as counsel to the bank on the financing agreement.

Exclusive, with an asterisk

Cairo software firm is lining up a Gulf-listed route into US government procurement: Kuwait’s Beyout Holding struck an agreement with Maadi-based e-procurement platform Teradix to become its exclusive provider to US government agencies and their contractors worldwide, either directly or through its HR subsidiary Kuwait Resources House (KRH), according to a disclosure (pdf) to Boursa Kuwait. The agreement also gives Beyout the right to market and resell Teradix’s products across Kuwait and the GCC.

But there’s no money on the table just yet: Beyout said the agreement has no financial impact for now, with no term, value, or US government contracts disclosed. Beyout’s cover letter to the Capital Markets Authority describes it as a preliminary agreement signed by a subsidiary — wording that doesn’t appear in the disclosure form attached to it, which has the parent signing.

So why Beyout? KRH supplies manpower and life-support services, a business that puts it alongside the US military’s footprint in the Gulf — the kind of partner that could get an Egyptian SaaS firm into rooms it couldn’t reach on its own. Teradix, founded in 2019 by Khaled Aboshady and backed by EBRD and Falak Startups, hasn’t commented publicly.

Fresh off the IPO

EGX approves rights issue for Korra Energi’s capital increase: The Egyptian Exchange’s (EGX) listing committee signed off on 2.025 bn subscription rights, taking Korra Energi’s capital to EGP 855 mn from EGP 450 mn, according to a disclosure to the bourse. The EGP 405 mn increase is funded by a cash subscription open to existing shareholders, who get 0.9 new shares for each share they hold at EGP 0.20 apiece.

The timeline: Shareholders qualify through the close of today’s session, and the share trades without the right from tomorrow. Rights trade from 18 October, when subscription opens, through 27 October, and are restricted to Egyptians.

BACKGROUND- Korra floated an 11% stake on the EGX at EGP 2.97 a share in May, raising EGP 735 mn in what was the second IPO of the year after Gourmet. The retail tranche closed 31.35x oversubscribed, and the stock closed up 19.5% on its June debut.

Bank installment option

A bank installment option for property tax bills is under study, with the Real Estate Tax Authority and banks working on a mechanism that would allow taxpayers facing large liabilities to repay through banks, a senior government official tells EnterpriseAM. The bank would settle the tax bill with the authority on the taxpayer’s behalf, then recover the amount in installments at a rate expected to be below prevailing market rates. The mechanism is still under technical and regulatory review, with no consumer finance agreements in place yet.

Factories are also on the table: The Finance Ministry is also studying industry requests to extend property tax relief or introduce new facilities for factories after the current exemption expires in December, the official says. The state has covered liabilities for some 20 industrial sectors since 2022, he notes. The measure is under assessment by Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk and relevant authorities. Real Estate Tax Authority Deputy Head Mohamed El Sayed tells us the authority is focused on “familiarizing businesses, factories, and individuals with the available relief” as part of a broader package of 17 facilitations for investors and individuals.

Check-in: Al Moez

The Urban Development Fund (UDF) awarded the Ananea Hotels & Resorts and Beit El Qahira Hotel Management consortium a 20-year usufruct contract to develop and operate a luxury boutique hotel in the Wakalet El Shourbagi building on Al Moez Street, Marwan El Shaer, MD of Beit El Qahira, tells EnterpriseAM. The consortium will bear the full USD 5 mn investment cost and expects to open within 24 months. Unesco approvals for the external finishes, typically the biggest hurdle in Historic Cairo projects, have already been obtained, he adds.

IN CONTEXT- This is the first concrete award under the government’s broader push to offer five to seven new investments in Historic Cairo under usufruct or PPP models, as we reported in November 2025. El Shaer says Beit El Qahira is already in talks to secure additional properties in Khedivial Cairo for hotel repurposing, aiming to expand its room count in the area.

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6

PLANET FINANCE

MENA startups set a mega-round record in 3Q as the early-stage deal base thinned 45%

Venture capital mega rounds reached a record high in 3Q, but the early-stage dealbase kept shrinking, according to Magnitt 3Q 2026 data seen by EnterpriseAM. Three rounds above USD 100 mn — Tabby’s USD 233 mn Series F, Barq’s USD 329.5 mn Series A, and Moove’s USD 250 mn funding round — pushed quarterly mega-round funding to a record USD 813 mn. Early-stage dealcount across the first nine months, meanwhile, fell 45% y-o-y.

In perspective: Regional startups raised about USD 3 bn across 351 transactions in 9M 2026, down 7% in value and 33% in volume compared with the same period last year, according to the report. Strip out mega-round and 9M funding would be down 32% y-o-y.

Mega rounds raised USD 1.5 bn across six transactions in 9M 2026 — more than the entirety of 2025 with a quarter still to go. The six were all in the UAE or Saudi Arabia: Barq (USD 329.5 mn), CargoX (USD 250 mn), Moove (USD 250 mn), Tabby (USD 233 mn), Mal (USD 230 mn), and Spiro (USD 215 mn).

September announcements did the heavy lifting. Two of the three 3Q mega-rounds, led by Barq, were announced that month, Magnitt’s research director Farah El Nahlawi tells us. “After two slow summer months, September marked a rebound. It accounted for two of the quarter’s three mega-rounds and recorded the third-highest monthly deal count of 2026, supported by the return of major regional events such as LEAP and Money20/20.”

UAE went one way, Saudi and Egypt the other: UAE funding rose 17% y-o-y to USD 1.6 bn, with close to USD 1 bn of that from mega-rounds. Saudi funding fell 29% y-o-y to USD 1 bn and Egypt dropped 20% to USD 206 mn. The UAE and Saudi together recorded 68% of regional transactions, broadly in line with 70% a year earlier.

Fintech kept its place as VC’s favorite sector. The sector raised USD 1.7 bn across 93 transactions — pulling 58% of regional funding and 26% of transactions, with four mega-rounds (Barq, Moove, Tabby, and Mal) accounting for 60% of the 9M funding. Transport and manufacturing followed at USD 298 mn and USD 218 mn, powered by CargoX and Spiro, respectively.

Local capital is filling the gap left by foreigners, a trend that we previously reported on in both stock markets and venture capital. MENA-based investors supplied 58% of capital deployed in 9M, up from 50% a year earlier and marking a three-year high for the share, while foreign investors’ share declined to 42%, with US-based investor deployment falling from 15% to 9%.

What’s next: The report expects a “higher for longer” interest rate environment to weigh on VC activity through 2027, with the US Federal Reserve having raised rates on 16 September for the first time since 2023 and projecting further tightening before year-end. Exits would be the other thing to keep an eye on — MENA recorded 31 M&A transactions in 9M 2026, down 26% y-o-y — consistent with Magnitt’s March scenario that expected buyer caution to show up within three to six months.

MARKETS THIS MORNING-

Asian markets were in the red in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei was down roughly 2.2%, coinciding with the release of economic data highlighting mounting inflationary pressure. South Korea’s Kospi was down around 5%.

EGX30

51,614

-1.1% (YTD: +23.4%)

USD (CBE)

Buy 52.60

Sell 52.74

USD (CIB)

Buy 52.60

Sell 52.70

Interest rates (CBE)

19.00% deposit

20.00% lending

Tadawul

10,283

-0.7% (YTD: -2%)

ADX

9,762

-0.3% (YTD: -2.3%)

DFM

5,838

+0.3% (YTD: -3.5%)

S&P 500

7,807

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THE CLOSING BELL-

The EGX30 fell 1.1% at yesterday’s close on turnover of EGP 7.5 bn (34.5% below the 90-day average). Regional investors were the sole net buyers. The index is up 23.4% YTD.

In the green: Alexandria Containers and Goods (+3.6%), Heliopolis Housing (+1.3%), and Fawry (+0.5%).

In the red: Misr Cement (-6.2%), Orascom Development (-5.6%), and Raya Holding (-4.7%).

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Our weekly deep dive into the green economy and ESG issue in Egypt.

Published every Tuesday in EnterpriseAM.

Read going Green
7

Going Green

What would it take to get black cloud fires to zero?

Egypt’s count of rice straw fires is down 24.8% so far this season. Satellites picked up 486 burning points across Greater Cairo, the Delta, and Assiut between 1 September and 7 October, down from 647 in the same period in 2025, according to the Local Development and Environment Ministry’s 9 October statement. With the black cloud season underway, the question is what it would take to bring that count to zero.

Last season, straw collection expanded to seven Delta governorates — Qalyubia, Sharqia, Gharbia, Dakahlia, Kafr El Sheikh, Beheira, and Damietta — and collection sites rose to 655 in 2025 from 398 in 2024, while rice straw burning points dropped to about 1.1k from about 3.5k, an official at the Waste Management Regulatory Authority (WMRA) tells EnterpriseAM.

PM10 readings are down about a third since 2015. PM10 stands for airborne particulate matter 10 microns or less in diameter, small enough to be inhaled into the lungs. It’s measured in micrograms per cubic meter of air (µg/m³). Readings across Greater Cairo and the Delta fell to 102 µg/m³ in 2025 from 157 a decade earlier, according to a 2025 recap from the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA). The government aims to halve the 2015 level by 2030, bringing readings to about 79 µg/m³, the EEAA says — another 23 µg/m³ to cut in five years. We reported on the trend in November.

Behind the drop in burning incidents: The World Bank, which funds the government’s Greater Cairo air pollution project, credits the 2025 fall to faster detection and response. In its April 2026 blog post, “Towards Better Air Quality in Egypt,” World Bank Environment, Natural Resources, Climate, and Blue Economy Regional Manager Maria Sarraf and World Bank Egypt Country Director — now Group Corporate Finance Director — Stéphane Guimbert wrote that the EEAA fielded more teams for longer hours in peak months while a stronger satellite early-warning system flagged hotspots in real time. They also said wider straw reuse and more than 11k farmer outreach meetings helped. Burning had persisted for years because farmers “lacked affordable alternatives,” they added.

What the count misses

Some burning might fall outside the official seasonal count: “Stored straw can be burned later in winter without being counted in the official black cloud season statistics,” the WMRA official tells us. Each burning point is a satellite hotspot that inspectors either confirm on the ground or log as a violation, they say. Satellites watch the whole country, but intensive enforcement runs from September to the end of November and focuses on Greater Cairo and seven Delta governorates. The season’s figures usually close at the end of November or in December, so winter burnings go uncounted unless they’re logged as a general agricultural-waste fire, they add.

Winter burning of stored straw is “well-documented and moderately common,” environmental scientist Ghada Oraby tells EnterpriseAM. She researches policy to cut air pollution from agricultural waste burning. Stored straw tends to burn in smaller batches between December and February as farmers clear land for the next crop or stacks deteriorate, she says. Often, collection centers can’t sell or move bales before winter rains turn them moldy, she explains. Prices also collapse at peak supply, leaving holders to discard unsold bales.

What this season holds

The weather this autumn is set to trap more pollution than in 2025. The ministry’s early-warning system forecasts still air or light winds for about 37% of the season, up from 33% in 2025, Local Development and Environment Minister Manal Awad says. Those conditions concentrate pollutants and make them harder to disperse, she adds. Pollution from particles even finer than PM10 caused an estimated 12.6k premature deaths in Greater Cairo in 2017 and cost the equivalent of about 1.35% of GDP in FY 2016/17, according to a World Bank study, as we’ve previously flagged.

Awad launched this year’s campaign to address acute air pollution episodes on 4 September. Its plan adds more field teams and committees this season, Awad says. “There are 69 field teams and evening patrol committees on farmland to monitor and prevent the open burning of agricultural waste,” the WMRA official tells us. They work daily with agricultural directorates and governorates, they add. The campaign also covers factory smokestacks and vehicle exhaust, the 9 October statement shows.

In Dakahlia, burning points fell by about two-thirds in the first half of September. Satellites spotted 15 burning points in the governorate between 1 and 15 September, against 44 in the same two weeks in 2025, Awad says in her 21 September statement. By mid-September, the governorate’s 140 collection sites had gathered 60.9k tons of straw from some 330k feddans of rice, and farmers have rented about 37 tractors and balers.

Some 1.2 mn tons of rice straw have been collected so far this season, with the rice harvest just over half done, the 9 October statement shows. The 2025 season’s total topped 2.6 mn tons, according to an Agriculture Ministry statement on 24 November. That’s up from about 1.2 mn tons in 2024, before the expansion, according to the EEAA. The straw produced about 4.8k tons of organic fertilizer in 2025, the Agriculture Ministry adds. The Local Development and Environment Ministry also offered farmers 125 subsidized balers and tractors in 2025, up from 73 in 2024. Both ministries fund the system from their budgets, with support from the World Bank’s Greater Cairo project, the WMRA official tells us.

The WMRA issued 107 licenses to collect and transport agricultural waste in 2025. A single license can cover several collection sites, including those run by one contractor, the official says. Straw gathered at unlicensed sites gets seized, he adds, and inspectors confiscated 55 tons in one Dakahlia campaign. This season, Awad directs field teams to keep checking that collection sites hold a license, as Law 202/2020 (pdf) requires.

Why farmers still burn

Farmers who hand their straw to a licensed contractor usually pay nothing to bale it or haul it to a collection site. At most, the contractor takes a small service deduction, the official says. Farmers earn EGP 50-100 a ton, which they call “extra net income compared with burning it in the past.”

Revenue vs. cost: At EGP 50-100 a ton, and with each feddan producing 2-2.5 tons of straw, a farmer earns EGP 100-250 per feddan, Oraby says. The farmer still needs to clear the field at his own expense. The higher cost he bears comes from the delay in planting his next crop. She calls his gain “negligible.” On its own, she adds, the payment is “generally insufficient.”

What tips the decision: Machinery subsidies that cut the effort of clearing fields, and fines for open burning, do more than the payment, she says. Under Law 202/2020, those fines run EGP 50k-1 mn, up to a year in prison, or both. Guaranteed prices for straw used in bioenergy, plus pooled carbon credits for small farmers, could lift straw’s value to EGP 300-400 a ton, she adds.

Where the straw goes

The same law requires local authorities and agriculture directorates to provide land for turning agricultural waste into feed, compost, or fuel. Fertilizer is one outlet, and the government aims to lift output from straw to 10k tons, up from about 4.8k in 2025, the WMRA official says.

The industrial gap: “There is not nearly enough factory demand in Egypt to absorb all the collected rice straw,” Assem Mohamed, a professor of agricultural climate at the Agricultural Research Center’s Climate Change Information Center, tells EnterpriseAM, adding that combined industrial demand tops out at around 300k-350k tons a year. One industrial buyer is the Wood Technology Company (Wotech), whose plant in Edko, Beheira, turns about 245k tons of straw a year into medium-density fiberboard, according to the World Bank. The government says it opened the plant in 2024 with the Petroleum Ministry at a total investment of EUR 351 mn, according to an EEAA statement. The gap “is heavily cushioned by the livestock and agricultural sectors,” Mohamed says, with the rest of the straw going to cattle feed, bedding, compost, and energy production.

What zero would take

Getting to zero: “Enforcing the law alone is not enough,” the WMRA official tells EnterpriseAM. “If every ton has a buyer, whether a feed, wood, or paper factory, the motive to burn disappears automatically.” Oraby doesn’t expect burning to stop on its own. The remaining burning comes from plots under one feddan that balers can’t reach, the 48-72 hours farmers have to clear fields before sowing the next crop, and diesel costs that squeeze contractors, she says, so progress now hits “diminishing marginal returns.”

Time to zero: “Realistically, a complete zero-burning target requires three to five years of synchronized execution,” Oraby says. That means seeders that plant wheat straight into rice stubble and long-term supply contracts between farm cooperatives and industrial plants, she tells us. Mohamed also calls for “specialized, micro-scale baling and threshing tools” that can work small, fragmented plots, “so smallholder farmers have zero logistical excuses to resort to burning.” “Without structural interventions in micro-farm mechanization and logistics, reduction rates will naturally plateau,” Oraby says.

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CALENDAR

OCTOBER

12-18 October (Monday-Sunday): IMF & World Bank Annual Meetings, Bangkok.

13-14 October (Tuesday-Wednesday): GTR North Africa 2026 Conference, Dusit Thani Lakeview Cairo.

19-22 October (Monday-Thursday): UfM Economic Forum, Cairo.

19-24 October (Monday-Saturday): Egypt 2026 Forum, The St. Regis New Capital.

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

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

NOVEMBER

5-7 November (Thursday-Saturday): ICA Annual Conference 2026, Cairo.

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

7-10 November (Sunday-Wednesday): Cairo ICT Forum, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo.

10 November (Tuesday): Cityscape Egypt Forum, Cairo.

DECEMBER

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

11-12 December (Friday-Saturday): ISER International Conference, Cairo.

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

17-20 December (Thursday-Sunday): MacTech Egypt, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

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.

29 September - 2 October (Wednesday-Saturday): Cityscape Egypt Exhibition, Cairo.

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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