No more financing for gold, and why people wanted it in the first place

1

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

Maersk tells the SCA it hopes to have all its services back on the Suez Canal by March 2027

Good morning, friends. All that glitters isn’t gold on the consumer finance front. The FRA decided bullion and jewelry count as investments, not consumer goods, so they can’t be financed on installments. But it raises a question we discussed with analysts in our top story: if people are borrowing to hedge inflation, is that a savings gap or a confidence problem? The sources we spoke to lean toward the first, and the numbers agree with them — household deposits were up 15% in the year to May, with the overnight rate still five points above inflation.

Also in today’s issue: Egypt’s greenhouses grow 3-4x what open fields produce per square meter but still only a fraction of what Dutch growers manage. We talked to growers about cheap local controllers built for desert heat instead of Nordic cold and state greenhouses going out on lease in part two of our agritech series. We also have all the details on a substrate plant planned for the SCZone that should help us stop importing soil.

ALSO- Short selling cleared another hurdle with an FRA model contract this week. The regulation is covered, but we’re waiting on MCDR’s live link to go up and to see whether asset owners are actually willing to lend their shares. The link is what killed the 2019 attempt — will new incentives pave the way for success?

***

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.

***

Canal comeback

Maersk hopes to have all of its shipping services back on the Suez Canal route by March 2027. Maersk COO Rabab Boulos gave that timeline to Suez Canal Authority (SCA) Chairman Osama Rabie during a video call on Tuesday, telling him the canal “remains the optimal choice” for the group, according to the authority’s account of the meeting.

Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk’s partner in the Gemini alliance, is working to a similar clock. CEO Rolf Habben Jansen expects “more or less all of our services [to] be back through Suez, maybe with one or two exceptions” sometime in 1Q 2027, “if there is no change.” That puts Gemini well ahead of the wider market, which is only about 30-35% back to normal on Suez routing, liner analyst Lars Jensen estimates.

Maersk’s traffic through the canal is already rising: Maersk-affiliated vessels made 276 transits in January-September 2026, up from 146 a year earlier, and their net tonnage more than tripled to 23.3 mn tons from 7 mn, according to SCA figures. That growth comes off a low base: canal-wide transits fell to 12.8k in 2025, the weakest year since the diversions began, down from 13.2k in 2024 and 26.4k in 2023, according to the SCA’s annual statistics (pdf).

And Egyptian ports are picking up calls: In its latest network changes, Maersk said its AE11 service would call at Port Said westbound instead of Tangier and AE19 would add Damietta, with first sailings on the new rotations leaving Asia between 15 and 22 November. The changes follow Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd’s September decision to move four more joint services back through the canal.

Red Sea stability will decide the rest: AE12, the last of those four services, now has a Suez rotation on paper, with two Port Said East calls on its run to Slovenia’s Koper and Croatia’s Rijeka. Maersk hasn’t set a date for its first transit, and the first change it has dated is a call at Sri Lanka’s Colombo in January. Further changes to the network still depend on “the ongoing stability in the Red Sea area” and “the absence of any escalation in conflicts in the region,” Maersk says.

Prescription for Algeria

Egypt is in talks with Algeria to make it easier for our local drugmakers to sell there, a senior government official tells EnterpriseAM. The goal is to take more than 10% of the market, the official says. Much of it comes down to paperwork: the two sides are discussing cutting the time it takes to register an Egyptian drug in Algeria to about six months, down from two to three years now, and easing the administrative, customs, and regulatory hurdles Egyptian companies face, the official says.

Joint manufacturing is on the table too: The talks cover partnerships with Algerian factories and transferring Egyptian technology and manufacturing know-how. “We’re looking at shipping drugs manufactured in Egypt to complete packaging locally in Algeria,” the official says, which could help Egyptian companies build up their presence there gradually. And the two sides are studying supplying drugs that Algeria’s own industry doesn’t fully cover.

That local angle matters, because Algeria makes most of what it uses. Local production covers more than 83% of national needs in a market that topped USD 5 bn last year, and the country’s drug import bill shrank to USD 515 mn in 2024 from USD 1.25 bn in 2022, Algerian Pharma Industry Minister Ouacim Kouidri told parliament in February. A 10% share would mean more than USD 500 mn a year in sales, or close to 40% of the USD 1.3 bn Egypt’s pharma sector exported last year, by our math. That’s about as much as Algeria imported in all of 2024, which is likely why making and packaging drugs inside Algeria is central to the talks.

Algeria is one piece of a bigger export drive: Pharma exporters are targeting about USD 1.6 bn by end-2026, after shipping USD 550 mn in the first five months, Export Council for Medical Industries head Mohy Hafez told us in September. The government wants USD 3 bn by 2030. Faster registration is a big part of the case: mutual-recognition transactions in Africa “can save companies at least a full year of procedures,” Hafez said at the time.

Opening more markets should also make Egypt’s pharma sector more attractive to investors looking to come in through partnerships or acquisitions, the official adds. The export push leans on the regulator’s standing abroad. The Egyptian Drug Authority reached the WHO’s maturity level 3 for medicines regulation in December 2024.

The billet dispute is still on

The government is asking steelmakers for much the same evidence the Administrative Court wants, three weeks before the rolling mills’ challenge to the billet duties is heard on 14 November. Companies must submit the data and documents required for a permanent committee to assess the impact of the measures, the industry and investment ministries said in a joint statement after meeting rolling mills and integrated producers separately. The committee brings together the industry, investment, and supply ministries and the Egyptian Competition Authority. By our read, its brief overlaps closely with what the court asked of the Investment Ministry: data on how imports have hit the market and whether local industry has grown under the duties.

Both camps got a message: Investment Minister Mohamed Farid told billet producers they must make billet available in line with their licensed capacities, in the quantities, grades and specs the mills need. Industry Minister Khaled Hashem told the companies that secured new billet licenses, meant to push rolling mills into melting their own, to move quickly into production. The meetings follow up on Decree 121 of 2026, which made the safeguard duties on steel imports final. The duty stands at about 12.1% now and steps down a point a year.

The court ruling will decide who carries the cost of protecting Egypt’s steel capacity. Rolling mills buy billet and roll it into rebar, so the duties land directly on their input costs, while integrated producers melt their own and need the duties to keep imports out. By our read, keeping the duties locks that split in for the rest of their three-year term. Scrapping them would reprice feedstock for every rebar producer in the country and weaken the case for the new melting licenses, which rest on the promise that local supply will close the gap.

IN CONTEXT- The mills have been campaigning to scrap the duties for weeks. They planned to meet on 11 October to coordinate and to take their case to the presidency and the Cabinet, on top of the court filing. Integrated producers told us the market isn’t short. They report 13.7 mn tons of billet capacity against 8.8 mn tons produced, with roughly 5 mn tons idle, and say they already sell about 170k tons a month, against the roughly 100k tons the mills need. The mills say imported billet is what keeps them running.

Bye bye, paper

Customs is going paperless: The Egyptian Customs Authority will stop accepting paper documents from Thursday, 29 October, under a decision seen by EnterpriseAM, after a year of study and Cabinet approval. Moving forward, importers and companies registering their accounts on Nafeza, the national single window for foreign trade, will need an e-seal tied to their tax ID and an electronic signature from the main authorized user. Nafeza is urging companies to get both ready ahead of time to avoid delays. Several of the government bodies working with Customs have already stopped accepting paper, which has been slowing clearance, a Nafeza source tells EnterpriseAM.

Importers can also get answers before they ship: For the first time, the authority is offering an optional advance-ruling service, a Customs Authority source tells EnterpriseAM. For EGP 5k, an importer gets a binding written decision within 60 days on a product’s tariff line, duties, and rules of origin. The decision applies at every port and is valid for one year on classification and three on origin.

That should cut down time at the port: The service, which meets Egypt’s commitments under the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement, should cut disputes over estimated duties, freight charges, and tariff lines, along with the demurrage fees importers pay to foreign companies while those disputes drag on, the source says.

Both moves should speed up clearance, which has already gotten faster: Average release times fell to about 5.8 days in August from around 16 days in June 2024, Investment Minister Mohamed Farid said at the time. The government is aiming for two days and eventually just a few hours, as we reported in April.

PSA-

WEATHER- Cairo is warming back up today, with a high of 29°C and a low of 19°C, a good two degrees above yesterday’s 27°C at both ends, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s a notch warmer on the coast in Alexandria too, with a high of 27°C and a low of 19°C.

And over the weekend, expect to see a touch more warmth in the capital (a high of 30°C) and as low as 26°C for our friends on the Mediterranean.

The big story abroad

Meta will begin offering shares without voting rights in January 2027 to pay for its costly AI expansion. The decision comes as Meta spends heavily on advanced chips and data centers to compete with AI rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Italy has brought in tougher security rules after rioters, some of them minors, reportedly looted shops, started fires, and damaged property in Milan’s main shopping area amid anti-government protests. A government decree will send 500 extra soldiers to Milan for the rest of the year, make parents pay for damage their children cause, and make it easier to take minors aged over 14 to court.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told US envoy Steve Witkoff that Russia is willing to restart three-party peace talks with the US and Ukraine in early November. The talks would focus on setting up a postwar security arrangement for Russia and Ukraine. Officials from the three countries have met on and off throughout the war.

Consumer lenders can no longer finance gold, and analysts weigh what that says about how Egyptians save

Has installment credit become one of the easiest inflation hedges available to ordinary Egyptians? Enough people were using consumer loans to buy gold that the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) banned consumer finance companies from financing gold and other precious metals. The regulator classed gold bullion and jewelry as investment tools rather than consumer goods, and the ban covers silver and platinum too. That raises a bigger question about whether Egyptians lack good savings products or have lost faith in the local currency. The analysts we spoke to see a risk problem in the trend and little sign that people have given up on their banks.

Why gold, why now

It’s a familiar market cycle, says AUC finance professor Maher Asham. “Markets are always driven by two things: greed and fear,” he tells EnterpriseAM. When geopolitical shocks push up demand for gold, people’s first instinct is to borrow and buy, even when they can’t really afford it, and lenders keep lending to grow their returns, Asham says.

Gold has a pull on Egyptian households that other assets don’t, banking analyst Mohamed Abdel Moneim says. “Gold has a particularly powerful psychological and practical advantage: the average household understands it, can physically own it, can resell it, and sees it as a store of value,” he explains. Even as inflation slows, people still buy gold to protect their wealth because they remember “what high inflation did to [paper money],” Bokra Holding CEO Ayman Elsawy told us last year. That “inflation memory” counts for more than global price charts, he argued.

Where the risk is

Borrowing to buy gold only pays if prices rise fast enough. When buyers count on that, the trade “can become debt-financed speculation, potentially without a full appreciation of the risks,” economist Iten El Margoushy says. To break even, the buyer needs a price gain big enough to cover financing costs, fees, the gap between buying and selling prices, and the making charges on jewelry, she says.

It’s also the wrong tool for the job, Abdel Moneim says. “Financing an investment asset through a consumer finance product creates a mismatch between the purpose of the product and the underlying economic activity,” he explains. Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) products were built for things people need, like a laptop or a replacement fridge, not for building up an asset.

The pressure builds when a borrower’s income drops. That buyer may have to sell at a loss to keep up with repayments, El Margoushy says, and the strain gets worse when the installments are spread across more than one lender. Egyptian law firms have also reported a rise in complaints about aggressive collection tied to consumer finance and BNPL, from incessant calls to contacting borrowers’ employers and families. The FRA submitted two folders of client complaints to the Administrative Court to defend its new registry for debt collectors against a challenge from some 71 collection firms. State law advisers have recommended the court uphold the rules, and from 22 January 2027, lenders can only work with registered collectors. Our July explainer covers why the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) and FRA are putting guardrails on the BNPL boom.

Plenty of alternatives, if they fit

Certificates, T-bills, and money-market funds all offer another way to save, but they differ in minimum ticket, liquidity, brokerage access, volatility, and how much understanding they demand, Abdel Moneim says. Having access to a product isn’t the same as it suiting you, he adds, and the gap comes down to financial literacy and income.

Which product suits whom “depends on the amount invested and the individual’s liquidity and income needs,” El Margoushy says. Certificates and deposits pay regular interest, and some pay annual returns above the latest inflation rate, while gold pays nothing. “A saver who needs an income to live on has different priorities from an investor who can set aside surplus funds for years,” she says.

Interest rates are already doing part of the hedging. Egypt has had rates above inflation “for a long period,” Asham says, which gives savers a positive real return. The CBE held rates for a fifth straight meeting last month, keeping the overnight deposit rate at 19%. Urban inflation eased to 13.9% in September from 14.5% in August. That leaves the deposit rate about five points above inflation, by our math, even as monthly prices rose 1.3%.

Trust in banks is holding

Buying gold doesn’t mean people have given up on their banks. “A household can trust its bank completely and still decide that its long-term savings should be partly in gold, foreign currency, or property,” El Margoushy says. She points to deposit data: households held about 60% of all banking-sector deposits in May 2026, and those deposits grew about 15% between June 2025 and May 2026. “These figures do not support a sweeping conclusion that people are turning to gold because they lack savings alternatives within the banking system,” she says. Abdel Moneim points to financial inclusion too: 79% of Egyptians aged 15 and over had active financial accounts at the end of June, according to the CBE.

The sector’s growth is why the guardrail matters. Consumer finance volumes jumped 57% y-o-y to EGP 96.3 bn by end-2025, serving more than 10.8 mn customers through 48 licensed companies, according to FRA data. The expansion “underscores the importance of ensuring sustainable growth while preserving the sector’s intended purpose,” El Margoushy says.

OUR TAKE- The FRA moved before borrowed money in gold could build into a bigger problem, and that’s what makes the decision sound. Each side of the trade made sense on its own terms: savers wanted an inflation hedge, and lenders wanted volume while gold climbed. Put together, that meant borrowed money piling into a single asset, the kind of collective behavior regulators exist to catch before it turns systemic.

Part 2: Local agritech is building the tools to double Egypt’s farm yields

Egyptian farms can double or triple their output “with much less of an investment” than European growers spend chasing single-digit gains, says Seif Salama, founder and CEO of agritech company Geneina. The tools to get there are starting to show up locally, from cheap greenhouse controllers to leased state greenhouses and a planned substrate plant in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone).

Part 1 of this series followed the cold-chain gaps and EU compliance holds that eat into Egypt’s USD 11.5 bn export boom. This part goes back to the farm, where those gains start.

Why now: Egypt became a leader in open-field farming off of cheap labor, plenty of water and sunlight, and subsidized fuel, pesticides, and fertilizers, Salama says. Since the devaluations and subsidy reforms that began around 2016-2017, growers have started asking how much they earn and yield per square meter, instead of how much they harvest overall, he says.

Labor is a big part of that push. Strawberry pickers who earned EGP 50 for a six-hour shift when Salama’s family started farming now earn at least EGP 350, he says, and that will keep rising as minimum wages and social ins. costs go up. A day’s farm work can now pay up to EGP 400, and labor makes up 40-50% of blueberry production costs, Agriventure CEO Ali Diab estimates.

Water is the other driver. More than 94% of Egypt’s freshwater comes from the Nile, so “every production decision is fundamentally a water decision,” agricultural economist and former USDA specialist Shaza Omar tells us. Rising seas are pushing saltwater into the Delta, causing seasonal crop losses of 30-40% in affected coastal areas, she says. Without adaptation, climate stress could cut average yields 10% by 2050, a direct loss of about USD 2 bn, she estimates.

Egypt’s rivals are under the same pressure: Morocco and Spain both face looming water and climate crises that are likely to slow them down as competitors, Salama says. By our read, that leaves room for local growers who modernize before their peers.

Room to grow

The yield numbers show how much upside there is. Egypt’s greenhouses produce about 13 kg of tomatoes per sqm a year, according to Capmas figures cited in a Dutch government market study (pdf). According to the Agricultural Research Center, open fields produce around 3.6-4.3 kg per sqm (15-18 tons per feddan), which means greenhouses produce roughly three to four times more, by our math. That still trails behind long-cycle greenhouses in Spain’s Almería, which average 16.8-20.9 kg per sqm and reach 29.5 kg in the best setups, a study (pdf) finds. And it’s a fraction of Dutch greenhouses, which average around 60 kg, according to FAO data. That’s where growers are now looking, Salama says. Farmers “are going to start to focus on how they can make every square meter more productive,” he explains.

Tech built for local conditions

The challenge is finding tools that fit, since most of the world’s controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) technology is designed for northern Europe. When Tulima Farms, his family’s 20-acre no-pesticide farm, bought a climate system from Danish company Synmatic, Salama’s team had to work with its developers to rewrite the software. “Here in Egypt, heating is a minor concern. It’s actually cooling that we need to do,” he says. It’s a point he makes to Dutch companies at industry events: “You cannot aim to sell a solution which asks for a Dutch agronomist to an Egyptian.”

Price is the other mismatch. European systems are built for greenhouses that cost USD 200-500 per sqm to build, against an Egyptian average of around USD 10-12, and when they break down, a European technician can take three months to arrive and may charge about EUR 1k a day, Salama says.

Local players like Geneina are stepping in with a controller the company says costs a tenth of a Dutch equivalent, and it’s lining up microfinance partners so smaller growers can lease it. Most local greenhouses still need new structures before they can be automated, Salama says. One of his clients with around 300 bays still sends four workers out twice a day to roll the plastic covers up and down by hand, he adds.

Putting state greenhouses to work

The state has built a large protected-farming base for private operators to work with. Egypt had about 109k greenhouses covering 45 mn sqm in 2020/21, some 52k of them in Dakahlia, according to the Dutch study. National projects added large clusters on top of that:

Mohamed Naguib, west of Hammam: 25 clusters of Spanish Rufepa greenhouses and 1k Chinese mid-tech units;
Abu Sultan, Ismailia: 2.3k Chinese-style greenhouses;
Al Lahoun, Beni Suef: around 1.1k greenhouses, Spanish and Egyptian-built, run by Mostakbal Misr;
10th of Ramadan: 1k Chinese greenhouses.

The state spent around USD 3 bn on these greenhouse projects over the past decade, Salama estimates.

Now the state is bringing in operators to run them. Following the financial crisis and IMF requirements, the government has been encouraging private companies to lease and manage state-built greenhouses for export-oriented produce, the study says, and the National Company for Protected Crops, part of the National Service Projects Organization (NSPO), has signaled the shift. Salama calls owning the land and leasing it out “the right strategy.” Agriventure now manages roughly 70% of the leased capacity, Diab says, and Fruitist is among the other operators. The next step is training enough skilled technicians and managers, a shortage the study ranks among the sector’s main constraints.

Making the inputs at home

Alternative soil is next in line for localization: High-value crops like blueberries can earn up to USD 10k per feddan against about USD 1k for traditional crops, Diab says, but they can’t grow efficiently in desert sand. That means growers need specialized substrates, which they’ve long imported from Europe. Agriventure is working with Finnish growing-media maker Kekkilä-BVB on a plan to open an alternative soil manufacturing facility in the SCZone. Industry Minister Khaled Hashem reviewed the plans with Kekkilä-BVB CEO Pekka Tennilä last month. Growing media make up about 30% of precision-farming costs, the ministry says, and the plant would also supply export markets in Europe, Africa, and the Arab world.

USD-priced inputs make every mistake costly. Growers paid USD 296 for 1k imported pepper seeds, while colored bell peppers fetched just EGP 20-34 per kg at wholesale in December 2023, the Dutch study found. That’s why Agriventure tests new varieties and sensors at a 20-acre R&D farm in Khatatba before rolling them out and purifies Nile water through reverse osmosis so every plant gets the same feed, Diab says.

Smarter crop protection

Crop protection may offer the biggest gains of all: Most smallholders rely on inherited knowledge or the shop that sells them pesticides, which tends to answer every problem with a product, Salama says. In his experience, the product is the wrong one about 70% of the time and is misapplied 70-80% of the time. He estimates poor diagnosis and misused chemicals cost farmers at least half their potential harvest.

Geneina’s answer is Aziza, an open-access AI agronomist that speaks colloquial Egyptian Arabic over WhatsApp and other messaging apps. Aziza draws on a farm’s own sensors where it has them, and on Geneina’s sensor network and Egypt’s meteorological stations where it doesn’t. That way it can warn a grower that blight is likely after several humid nights and suggest a locally available treatment based on FAO, Agriculture Ministry, and international pesticide guidelines. Aziza has only just launched, so there’s no impact data yet. Salama sees it as a long-term investment in educating farmers that should pay off “in five years’ time.”

Global suppliers are moving the same way: BASF now sends SMS alerts warning farmers of fungal or pest outbreaks 48 hours ahead, based on weather data, so they can apply preventive treatments in time, Ahmed Abu Zahra, country and sales manager for Egypt and the Middle East at BASF, tells us. Many protection failures come from spraying in peak afternoon heat or at the wrong moment, he says.

What’s next: By our read, the government’s 2030 agriculture and sustainability targets lean on the same levers we’ve covered in this series: more farmland, higher yields, and more competitive exports, according to an Agriculture Ministry statement. The government is targeting a 20% lift in agricultural productivity by deploying 5k farm machines nationwide by the end of 2027. To hit their target of USD 19 bn a year in agricultural exports by the end of the decade, Agriculture Minister Alaa Farouk is also courting private investment in production, processing, modern irrigation, and agritech.

FRA issues model short-selling contract, with launch weeks away

The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) issued a model contract for short selling, ticking off another requirement ahead of the mechanism’s launch. Brokerages and investors borrowing shares to short will use a single template setting out each side’s obligations, according to a statement from the regulator.

Here’s how it works: The template governs the relationship between the brokerage and the borrowing client — the lender is a separate party that supplies shares through the central lending system run by Misr for Central Clearing, Depository, and Registry (MCDR), not a signatory to this contract. Investors must put up margin before the borrowing is executed, at no less than the regulatory minimum, with brokerages required to hold the funds in segregated accounts and revalue borrowed shares against the live closing price during the session. All fees must be disclosed upfront, and any changes require the client’s explicit consent.

When things go wrong: If an investor fails to return borrowed shares on time, the brokerage must buy them back. Positions must also be closed if a stock is removed from the list of eligible securities or the issuer becomes subject to an acquisition, merger, tender offer, demerger, or liquidation. Brokerages must invest clients’ margin funds in FRA-approved instruments for the duration of the loan, disclose where it sits, and credit the return to their accounts. They also owe clients a detailed, plain-language guide to the mechanism and its risks, refreshed whenever the rules change and handed over at least once a year.

So what’s the holdup? The FRA is finalizing operational guidelines for the other parties involved, while MCDR works on linking its central securities lending system to brokerages in real time, allowing borrowers to see every available offer and pick what fits while letting lenders see what else is on the system. That shouldn’t take long, according to FRA Chairman Islam Azzam, who said in Alexandria last week that short selling would go live “within weeks,” though he stopped short of giving a date.

IN CONTEXT- The FRA issued its short-selling rulebook in August, following board approval earlier that month. Licensed brokerages were given a month from the rules taking effect to get their systems ready, pointing to a late-September launch that never materialized. Testing ran past that deadline: MCDR was still trialing the central lending pool in September, with an early-November rollout in its sights, and the FRA said on 13 October that live testing with brokerages was underway. The EGX has drawn the eligible universe from the EGX30, with 30 constituents and the EGX30 ETF cleared for lending from September.

Short selling is also the last piece of a broader push to give investors more ways to trade on the EGX. The exchange launched index futures in March and single-stock futures on CIB and TMG in June, after securing its futures exchange license in January. A new hedge fund rulebook also took effect in September, allowing funds to short stocks, trade derivatives, and borrow to invest. Short selling itself is older than all of that on paper: the mechanism has technically been allowed since 2019, when the FRA licensed some 51 brokerages to offer it.

Why it matters: The regulatory side is nearly done, and what’s left is technical and behavioral. The FRA statement says activation still waits on the live MCDR link-up with brokerages — getting the mechanism to trade at all then hinges on whether shareholders will lend. That supply question is the same one that sank the 2019 attempt. EGX Chairman Omar Radwan told us in August that “one of the main deterrents was the lack of incentives for asset owners to lend their shares.”

The new framework tries to fix that by having MCDR invest the proceeds from short sales in fixed-income instruments, with lenders earning that return on top of the lending fee once the position closes. They also keep their dividend and subscription entitlements while their shares are out on loan.

Beltone’s new B-Torohat fund aims to ride Egypt’s busiest IPO run in years

Beltone Asset Management launched B-Torohat, an actively managed equity fund targeting an initial EGP 500 mn that will invest in IPOs, rights issues, secondary offerings, and recently listed EGX stocks, the Beltone Holding subsidiary said in a statement (pdf). The fund’s private tranche was fully covered within a day, and the fund could be upsized depending on demand and regulatory requirements, it said.

How it works: Between 30% and 95% of the issuance proceeds go toward targeted investments — EGX IPOs, rights issues, and secondary offerings on the main market, along with ETFs and shares listed for less than five years — with up to 20% allowed in offerings on the EGX’s small- and mid-cap board. If suitable prospects don’t materialize, surplus liquidity can be parked in fixed income until they do.

IN CONTEXT- The fund is launching into the EGX’s busiest IPO run in years. Gourmet raised almost EGP 1.31 bn in February, by our math, and Korra Energi followed in June with a stake valued at EGP 735 mn. MNT-Halan debuted this week after its EGP 7.84 bn offering, and subscriptions for Banque du Caire (BdC) are still open. Once BdC lists, 2026 will match the four IPOs of 2021, a long way from 2023, when the exchange didn’t get a single IPO, and from the two it got in 2024.

SPAC attack

More companies could be heading to the EGX through special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Law firm Matouk Bassiouny & Hennawy is reviewing the proposals of four companies looking to list that way, Mohamed Abdel Fattah, partner and head of capital markets, told Al Borsa, although he didn’t name the firms or give a timeline. The firm is also advising on a private-sector IPO and the listing of the Egypt Education Platform, both expected to wrap up before year-end.

The pipeline is growing, but listing a blank-check company is only half the job. The latest vehicle, Spark for Acquisition, whose backers haven’t been disclosed, would be the EGX’s fourth SPAC, joining three others at different stages of finding and closing transactions. Catalyst Partners Middle East, which listed in late 2024, has closed its EGP 2.8 bn share-swap takeover of Qardy and Catalyst Partners Holding. Its board approved a bid for EIH Consulting in principle in April. Hassan Allam’s SPAC, renamed Grova Venture Capital in March, has yet to announce a deal. OG Capital, which listed temporarily on 19 May, hasn’t named a target yet and has until around 19 November to put one to a shareholder vote, unless the FRA grants an extension.

Shareholders step up

Contact’s bridge loan has its first backer. OB Financial Holding (formerly Orascom Financial Holding and the owner of 29.25% of Contact Financial Holding) agreed to lend Contact EGP 287.5 mn at zero interest, according to an EGX filing (pdf). The subordinated loan will be converted into shares when Contact’s planned capital increase goes through. OB’s board approved it unanimously on 20 October and will call an ordinary general assembly to ratify the decision, with no date set yet.

That’s 41% of the EGP 700 mn Contact wants from its main shareholders, roughly in line with OB’s weight between the two. Consolidated Financial Holding (42.01%) and OB (29.25%) together hold 71.26%, and they’re the only two classed as main shareholders in a separate disclosure (pdf). That leaves EGP 412.5 mn for Consolidated to cover, by our math. Third-largest holder Rimco EGT Investment (9.95%) isn’t a main shareholder, so it falls outside the loan.

REFRESHER- The non-bank financial services company plans to raise EGP 1.6-1.8 bn through capital increases at par, much of it to bring some subsidiaries in line with the FRA’s capital requirements. Contact has said the approvals will take time and it needs the capital sooner, so the shareholder loans are meant to bridge the gap until the capital hike wraps up.

Pyramids, meet Hotel101

Hotel101 Global, a Singapore-based unit of Philippine-listed DoubleDragon, signed definitive binding agreements for a country-wide JV with IGI Holding to bring its first hotel to Egypt. This will be its first entry on the African continent, according to a company statement (pdf). The initial property, Hotel101-Cairo West, will feature about 750 rooms across a 16k sqm site in Hay Al Ashgar along Ahmed Zewail Road in 6th of October City, around 10 minutes from the Giza Pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum. The company expects a total project value of EGP 5.5 bn, with completion targeted for 2029, subject to customary government, regulatory, and corporate approvals.

IN CONTEXT- West Cairo is filling up with tourism plans. State-backed Nevera Egypt for Sustainable Development plans to launch an integrated media city in West Cairo. It’s looking to bring international brands to construct 18 hotels and transform the area surrounding the Pyramids Plateau into a multi-mn-sqm hub for tourism, hospitality, real estate, logistics, and commercial activities. Orascom Pyramids Entertainment also plans to pour EGP 500 mn into the Giza Plateau next year, focusing on service quality, infrastructure, F&B, and cultural events.

A dose of expansion

Egyptian drugmaker Marcyrl Group signed a strategic partnership with Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Bio to localize a portfolio of its women’s health, fertility, and respiratory medicines in the UAE, according to a press release(pdf). Mubadala Bio Group CEO Essam Mohamed and Marcyrl CEO George Saad signed the agreement at the Future Health Summit in Abu Dhabi. The products will be made and distributed in the UAE, with more expected to be added over time. They range from fertility and pregnancy treatments to inhalers, nebulizer solutions, and nasal sprays.

It gives Marcyrl a partner with a regional reach. The partnership combines “Marcyrl Group’s manufacturing expertise in women’s health, fertility, and respiratory care with Mubadala Bio’s regional platform” and should widen access to the medicines “in the UAE and across the GCC,” Saad said. Marcyrl already exports across the Middle East and Africa, and DPI and Amethis took a minority stake in 2023 to back its expansion.

Egyptian drugmakers have been heading to the UAE: In 2024, MD Pharma signed an agreement with Dubai Industrial City to build a medicine factory worth more than AED 130 mn (c. USD 35 mn).

High-voltage investment

Sino-Egyptian joint ventures XD-Egemac and Chint Egemac plan to invest USD 500 mn to scale up domestic electric equipment manufacturing and build turnkey transformer substations, Asharq Business reports, citing an unnamed government official. The expansion will add production lines and deepen local component integration for equipment feeding state transmission networks, distribution grids, and renewable energy projects.

About the joint ventures: XD-Egemac (51% China XD Group, 49% state-owned Egemac) makes and assembles high- and ultra-high-voltage gear (including power transformers up to 500 kV) and has built about 37 turnkey substations, seven of them at 500 kV. It took part in transmission projects linked to the Benban solar park and the New Delta. Sister venture Chint Egemac makes low- and medium-voltage gear — distribution panels, transformer kiosks, ring main units, and circuit breakers — and has supplied electrical equipment for projects at the New Capital and the Dabaa nuclear plant.

IN CONTEXT- The state is already buying what these ventures make. The Electricity Ministry approved EGP 3 bn in October to expand the El Alamein and Dabaa transformer zones, including two new 500 kV substations, to serve data center infrastructure.

A direct line home

Egyptians in the UAE can now send money home straight into an Orange Cash wallet under a new partnership between Orange Egypt and Abu Dhabi-based fintech Botim, Orange said in a statement. Money arrives in the wallet 24/7, and recipients can move, spend, or cashout the funds once they land.

IN CONTEXT- Botim’s Egyptian footprint already includes a 2023 partnership with payments platform Fawry to let Egyptians in the UAE pay bills and send remittances home. This is its first partnership with a mobile network operator in Egypt, according to the statement. Remittances from Egyptians abroad hit USD 47.3 bn in FY 2025/26, up 29.6%, and the UAE stands out among the primary sources.

French bond spreads hit their widest gap since the 2011 crisis, reviving the eurozone’s bank-sovereign “doom loop” debate

he gap between French and German borrowing costs has widened to levels not seen since the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis. That revives a question the bloc thought it had settled: whether one member’s fiscal troubles can still drag down its banks and spread from there. France’s 10-year yield premium over German bunds pushed above 150 bps on Tuesday, the first close at that level since January 2012, and spiked intraday to around 159 bps, the widest since 2011, according to Bloomberg. The move prompted Franklin Templeton’s fixed-income CIO, Sonal Desai, to warn that a fresh eurozone debt crisis — “version 2.0,” as she put it — “could be significantly worse” than the last one, Bloomberg reports separately.

France has become the market’s weak link. The government is trying to push through a cost-cutting budget amid nationwide protests over living costs and school conditions. Its debt-servicing costs have hit 25-year highs, and a 2027 presidential election looms with far-right and far-left candidates leading the polls, according to Reuters. BlackRock’s strategists frame it as a case study in how a “battle for capital” now punishes shaky credits: “France shows why selectivity matters,” they write, with the spread over bunds measuring the extra compensation investors want for the fiscal and political risk.

The reason the warnings carry weight is scale. France is a EUR 3 tn economy carrying about EUR 3.6 tn of debt, which Desai noted is more than 10 times what Greece owed during its crisis. “A simple bailout is not on the cards,” she said. France also remains an investment-grade borrower, one of several differences from the last crisis. So, the stress will play out on different terms.

The channel everyone is watching is the banks. Eurozone lenders hold their governments’ bonds as supposedly no-risk assets, so when those bonds fall, bank balance sheets take the hit — the “doom loop” that in the last crisis forced state bailouts and drained budgets further. The strain is already showing in equities, where European bank stocks have dropped about 10% over six weeks, five times the broader market’s fall and following a rally to 16-year highs, with France’s three biggest lenders down 17%.

The prevailing view is that the system is better built to absorb it. Euro-area debt-to-GDP has fallen back to its 2011 level of around 89%, even as France’s has swollen to nearly 120%, and banks are far better capitalized than in 2010. Eurozone lenders’ sovereign holdings have doubled since the crisis to EUR 4.3 tn (USD 4.8 tn), but their capital buffers have grown faster, and large French banks’ exposure to home-country debt is roughly 15-30% of their best-quality capital — by the calculations of Axiom Alternative Investments and WisdomTree — against more than 100% for Italian banks at the height of 2011-12.

Banks have also changed how they hold the debt. Lenders have cut domestic bonds to 41% of their sovereign holdings, from more than 50% in 2013, and now book 60% of their bonds at cost, which lets them avoid recording losses unless they are forced to sell. Piraeus CEO Christos Megalou, whose bank sits in the country where the last crisis began, said Greece now services its debt at rates well below the UK’s, and that regulators, policymakers, and banks have “battle-tested mechanisms” that make a repeat “mega-problem” unlikely.

…none of which makes the banks immune: “There is a limit to which you can insulate yourself from the domestic credit,” said Moody’s analyst Simon Ainsworth. Held-to-maturity accounting only hides unrealized losses until a lender is forced to sell, and Morningstar DBRS’ Maria Rivas said what ultimately matters is how investors treat portfolios sitting on those losses: A short episode should not move sentiment much, but a prolonged one could.

Higher sovereign yields also feed straight into funding costs. French banks are the EU’s largest wholesale debt issuers, so a permanently higher yield raises the “cost of money every time they refinance, and that compounds,” WisdomTree’s Aneeka Gupta said. A backstop is not automatic either, BlackRock notes, leaving “further volatility and spillovers” possible.

The wider frame is a global contest for capital. More than 80% of the world’s bonds now yield above 4%, against just 6.3% five years ago, so investors can afford to be choosy and are demanding more from weaker borrowers everywhere. That is steering money toward cleaner books. BlackRock favors US Treasuries, which it upgraded last week, and emerging-market local-currency debt, particularly in Latin America. It also sees selective value in better-financed euro names such as Spain, while staying neutral on euro-area government bonds overall. Franklin Templeton has tilted its own euro holdings toward shorter-dated Italian and French paper, with a more constructive stance on Spain and Germany.

The spread is the number to watch, and a sustained push past the 159 bps intraday peak would take France into territory it has not held since the crisis years. Beyond that, watch for any signal the European Central Bank will step in, the course of France’s budget fight and the run-up to the 2027 election, and the diversification rules the European Commission is due to propose in early 2027 to weaken the bank-sovereign link.

MARKETS THIS MORNING-

Asian markets were in the red in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei was down roughly 0.4% and South Korea’s Kospi was down around 0.9%, following a decision by the Bank of Korea to keep rates unchanged.

EGX30	52,855	+1.5% (YTD: +26.4%)
USD (CBE)	Buy 54.33	Sell 54.47
USD (CIB)	Buy 54.33	Sell 54.43
Interest rates (CBE)	19.00% deposit	20.00% lending
Tadawul	9,926	−0.3% (YTD: −5.9%)
ADX	9,771	-0.6% (YTD: -2.2%)
DFM	5,860	+0.4% (YTD: -3.1%)
S&P 500	7,757	+0.6 (YTD: +13.3%)
FTSE 100	10,753	+0.2% (YTD: +8.3%)
Euro Stoxx 50	6,208	+1.4% (YTD: +7.1%)
Brent crude	USD 110.11	+1.2%
Natural gas (Nymex)	USD 2.77	-0.6%
Gold	USD 4,130	-0.5%
BTC	USD 83,520	+0.6% (YTD: -4.7%)
S&P Egypt Sovereign Bond Index	1,138	+0.5% (YTD: +14.6%)
S&P MENA Bond & Sukuk	147.98	0.0% (YTD: -2.6%)
VIX (Volatility Index)	16.68	-3.6% (YTD: +11.6%)

THE CLOSING BELL-

The EGX30 rose 1.5% at yesterday’s close on turnover of EGP 8.3 bn (27% below the 90-day average). Local investors were the sole net sellers. The index is up 26.4% YTD.

In the green: Suez Canal Bank (+7.1%) TMG Holding (+6.0%), and Pioneers Properties for Urban Development (+4.9%).

In the red: Korra (-9.3%), Electro Cable Egypt (-6.2%), and Golden Textiles & Clothes Wool (-5.9%).

My Morning Routine: Mayar Naguib, head of Corporate Reputation, CSR, Sustainability, and PR at Etisalat Egypt

Mayar Naguib, head of Corporate Reputation, CSR, Sustainability, and PR at Etisalat Egypt: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Mayar Naguib (LinkedIn), head of Corporate Reputation, CSR, Sustainability, and PR at Etisalat Egypt.

Edited excerpts from our conversation:

At my core, I care about one thing: helping organizations find the right words and build real relationships with the people they serve. I’ve done that for more than 20 years, much of it in tech and telecom, running communications, reputation, sustainability, and corporate responsibility. What keeps me hooked is how much a message can move. Good communication shapes business results and long-term value, not just visibility.

I often joke that I clean up corporate messes for a living. As head of corporate reputation, public relations, and sustainability, I protect one of Etisalat’s most valuable assets: its reputation. Crises excite me most, because while others shy away from uncertainty, I lean in. Protecting trust when things go wrong is where a communications team proves its worth. Alongside that, I run sustainability and corporate responsibility programs that leave a lasting mark on communities. No two days look the same, and that’s exactly what keeps it interesting.

Connectivity remains the foundation, but the real value is in what it unlocks. Telecom operators have moved well beyond SIM cards and network towers. Today, connectivity opens doors to education, financial inclusion, healthcare, and entrepreneurship. Our challenge is to give people the tools and services they need to take part in a digital world.

AI is one of the most transformative technologies of our time, and one of the most overused words in business. Everyone talks about it, yet many people are still trying to understand where it adds value. The real gains come from practical uses that solve real problems, not from adding “AI” to every presentation. In communications, it’s already changing how we create, analyze, and engage, but it can’t replace the judgment, empathy, creativity, and ethics that build trust. The companies that succeed will be the ones that use it responsibly.

My day actually starts twice. The first round begins around 5:30 am, when my two daughters get up for school. I treasure that time with them before they leave. Once the rush is over, I often sneak in another hour or two of sleep before starting work around 8 am.

I start the workday by mapping out my absolute priorities. I like working in natural light, and when I can, you’ll find me working in my garden because being outdoors helps me think clearly. That said, I’m not a big fan of working from home, since I’d rather be around people trading ideas. From there, one moment I’m discussing a sustainability initiative, and the next I’m reviewing a communications strategy or handling an emerging issue.

I can’t function without to-do lists and calendars. If something isn’t written in one of them, I’ll probably forget it, and in communications, priorities can shift by the hour. For all the technology around, I’m still old school. My notebook is one of my most valuable tools at work, and I write in it constantly because putting pen to paper helps me organize my thoughts.

However busy things get, I try to be home as early as possible to spend quality time with my daughters. The younger one has become my toughest accountability partner: the moment I reach for my phone while we’re talking, she gives me “the look.” It’s a reminder that being in the room isn’t the same as being present, and I’m still learning that every day.

Work-life balance is one of the hardest things any professional has to manage, and I still struggle with it. It takes discipline, boundaries, and constant rethinking of priorities. Communications people rarely switch off, because news doesn’t keep office hours and neither do reputational issues.

Padel with friends is my favorite way to unwind. I played competitive tennis until I was 14, so picking up padel about five years ago felt like getting back something I’d missed. It mixes exercise, competition, company, and a lot of laughter. For me, exercise has never been just about fitness. It’s how I recharge, clear my head, and come back the next day with fresh energy.

A trip to Malaysia about 20 years ago has stayed with me ever since. I was struck by how well the country promoted itself as a destination, and I left impressed and a little jealous. Egypt has one of the richest cultures in the world, and I felt we could do more to share it internationally and improve the tourist experience. Since then, I’ve literally dreamed about helping lift Egypt’s brand globally, strategies, meetings, and all. Whether or not that’s in my future, I still feel a responsibility to play a part.

“Do fewer things, but do them big” is the advice I’ve lived by ever since a manager at Intel shared it with me. At the time, I was overwhelmed and measured success by tasks finished rather than impact made. Her words made me more deliberate about where I put my energy, and my work became better, more visible, and far more rewarding. With everyone now expected to do more and move faster, I believe impact matters more than activity.

CALENDAR

OCTOBER

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.

29 October (Thursday): Customs goes fully paperless on Nafeza registration; advance-ruling service opens.

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.

14 November (Saturday): Rolling mills’ Administrative Court challenge.

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.

Sections

About

Privacy & Support