MNT-Halan wraps subscriptions with biggest order book the EGX has seen in years

📍 If anyone was in doubt that Egypt’s IPO market is picking up steam, MNT-Halan just proved them wrong. The fintech wrapped up subscriptions today with the biggest order book the EGX has seen in years, a sign that investor appetite for the right stock is very much alive. Retail and institutional investors placed combined orders for 16x more stock than was on offer, with total demand coming in at EGP 125.9 bn (c. USD 2.4 bn) for an EGP 7.84 bn offering, by our math based on preliminary data from brokerage Thndr’s app. That’s triple what this year’s other two IPOs, Gourmet and Korra Energi, drew combined, by our math.

Retail piled in at the end for a last-minute rush: Individual investors covered their slice of the pie 43.6x by today’s close, preliminary data shows, more than triple the 13.5x they’d reached a day earlier, with some EGP 51.3 bn in orders, by our math. Institutions had already closed their book 11.2x covered on Tuesday, with some EGP 74.6 bn.

Institutional appetite was truly global, with more than 300 funds from over 10 countries, including several GCC states, the UK, France, Switzerland and South Africa, putting in orders for the private placement even as ongoing geopolitical tensions rattled neighboring markets.

This is the EGX’s biggest IPO in USD terms since e-Finance in 2021, a title it’s set to hold only until BdC’s roughly USD 460 mn offering. How MNT trades after its 20 October debut will likely set the tone for everything that comes ahead. Beyond big names like state-backed lender Banque du Caire (BdC) Misr Life Ins. lining up, there are five or six of the 20 state-owned companies sitting on temporary listings that could complete full IPOs within a year, EGX Executive Chairman Omar Radwan previously told us.

The blockbuster offering caps a busy stretch for the bourse, which has, this year alone, kicked off futures trading and gained new short-selling rules as part of a broader push to deepen the market.

Islam Azzam, chairman of the Financial Regulatory Authority, has just been handed a multi-year mandate to see that push through, breaking from the recent norm of year-by-year renewals. BdC is next in line with an even bigger IPO, with Misr Life Ins. and Egypt Education Platform (EEP) expected to hit the EGX within the next three months. Each will be another test of whether foreign investors, who were net sellers of Egyptian equities for most of the year, are ready to come back.

REMEMBER– Parent MNT Investments B.V. is selling 320 mn existing shares, good for 20% of its Egyptian arm on the EGX, in a fully secondary offering priced at EGP 24.50 apiece, valuing the company at some EGP 39.2 bn. The IPO secured two cornerstone investors — CIB, which committed up to EGP 2 bn, and London-based Redwheel, which committed some USD 20 mn — giving the offering a significant vote of confidence from institutional money. While none of the proceeds go straight to the company, the parent will put up to EGP 4 bn back in through a closed capital increase at the offer price.

One analyst tells us the market can handle bigger IPOs, but that could push shareholders of existing stocks to sell-down positions to buy the hot new thing. The EGX has grown big enough to absorb larger offerings, as the surge in trading volumes during the last rally showed, Tycoon Securities’ Sameh Gharib tells EnterpriseAM. But that doesn’t mean existing stocks won’t feel the squeeze: Some of the money going into these IPOs is coming out of shares investors already own, putting pressure on the broader market in the short run, he says.

Institutional investors are likely to show up again for Banque du Caire, Gharib says. Funds set aside money to get into MNT-Halan and are expected to do the same for Banque du Caire. Retail is a different story. Much of that cash came from outside the market specifically for the subscription and will likely leave once it’s over, with only a portion sticking around to trade, he says.

It helps that the market is extending a multi-year run and outpacing the region while it’s at it. The EGX30 is up more than 22% so far this year, on top of a roughly 40% gain in 2025, after setting a string of record highs, and the bourse’s market cap reached EGP 4.06 tn at the end of September, up from EGP 3.2 tn in January. That puts Cairo ahead of almost all our neighbors: as of last week, Saudi Arabia’s TASI was up just 0.5% for the year, Dubai and Abu Dhabi were slightly in the red, and Qatar was down more than 14%, according to QNB data (pdf), with only Oman’s much smaller market doing better.

What’s next: Orders will now be allocated pro rata, with no ballot and no guaranteed minimum, and refunds sent back for the unfilled portion ahead of the debut. For its first 30 days of trading, a stabilization fund backed by the full public-tranche proceeds, some EGP 1.18 bn, will hold a buy order at the EGP 24.50 offer price, open to shares from the public tranche only. BdC’s books close later this month ahead of a November trading debut.

ADVISORS- Our friends EFG Hermes and Citi are joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners on MNT-Halan’s IPO. Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Matouk Bassiouny & Hennawy are advising MNT-Halan and the selling shareholder, while White & Case and MHR & Partners are counsel to the bookrunners. KPMG Hazem Hassan is the auditor, and BDO Keys is the independent financial advisor.