EGP weakens against USD — plus, four foreign funds commit USD 256 mn to Banque du Caire IPO

At home, the USD jumped to EGP 55 for the first time, while Banque du Caire’s IPO and MNT-Halan’s EGX debuts drew strong demand. Abroad, cost-of-living protests swept Europe, Russia-Ukraine peace talks stalled and restarted, and big-ticket tech and business transactions made headlines.

LAST WEEK IN 3 MINS-

The headlines at home this week included a mixed bag of a new record high for the greenback against the EGP, Banque du Caire’s IPO, and MNT-Halan’s first day of trading, among other news.

EXCHANGE RATE-

The USD crossed the EGP 55 threshold yesterday, hitting a record high. The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) quoted USD 1 at EGP 55.24 for buying and EGP 55.38 for selling, while the National Bank of Egypt quoted EGP 55.25 and EGP 55.35. Former head of the Industrial Development Bank Maged Fahmy tells EnterpriseAM that “the move was expected given rising geopolitical tensions in the region, higher global energy prices, and a growing external debt service burden.”

PRIVATIZATION WATCH-

Banque du Caire (BdC) has lined up foreign buyers for more than half of its IPO, giving the state-owned lender an early vote of confidence from institutions it courted during its international roadshows. Four cornerstone investors have committed up to USD 256 mn to the offering, with UK hedge fund Helikon, London-based Redwheel, Africa-focused Sustainable Capital, and the UAE’s Waha Investments all backing the IPO.

BdC’s private placement, which accounts for 95% of the shares on offer, was covered within hours of the subscription opening on Monday, the first day of the offering. Orders came in from investors in the US, Europe, Africa, and the Gulf, alongside institutions that had agreed to allocations during the roadshows. The four anchor investors can take just under two-thirds of the tranche at most, so other institutions must have participated to get it fully covered, by our estimate. It’s not yet clear how many times the book was covered or how much demand the retail tranche drew.

MEANWHILE- A 20% stake in Misr Life Ins. is tentatively set for offering in December. The government postponed the sale to make room for the Bank du Caire IPO. The company’s fair value study is still being prepared, and the December date remains provisional, depending on coordination between the Investment Ministry, the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, and the offering’s managers.

ALSO- MNT-Halan’s shares closed up 6.9% at EGP 26.20 apiece on their first day of trading on Tuesday, valuing the fintech’s Egyptian arm at some EGP 41.9 bn and shrugging off a market rattled by regional tensions.

REAL ESTATE-

Talaat Moustafa Group signed multiple agreements with the government, with the combined investments reaching about EGP 11 tn (c. USD 206 bn). The agreements are for developing four mixed-use projects in Madinaty, Alexandria, Abu Qir, and the North Coast. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi witnessed the announcement at the Egypt 2026 Forum in the New Capital.

CAPITAL MARKETS-

More companies could soon be allowed to set up and manage investment funds in Egypt. The Financial Regulatory Authority is working with the EGX on amending Article 29 of the Capital Market Law so that limited liability companies and simple limited partnerships can get licensed to form funds. Right now, that license is reserved for joint-stock companies and partnerships limited by shares.

INDUSTRY-

Fertiglobe, the Adnoc-controlled fertilizer maker, is studying a complex worth more than USD 1.5 bn in Ain Sokhna to produce diammonium phosphate (DAP). The plant would make 1.3 mn tons a year of DAP, one of the world’s most widely used fertilizers, made by reacting phosphoric acid with ammonia. Commercial production is targeted for 2031.

ENERGY-

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a group of development lenders assembled up to USD 566 mn in debt for Nefer Minya, the 1.2 GWp solar plant with 600 MWh of battery storage in Minya that will be the largest in Egypt and Africa. The package covers about three-quarters of the project’s USD 764 mn cost, leaving the two sponsors to fund roughly USD 198 mn in equity, by our math.

LOGISTICS-

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 Chairman Osama Rabie during a video call on Tuesday, telling him the canal “remains the optimal choice” for the group. Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk’s partner in the Gemini alliance, expects “more or less all of our services [to] be back through Suez, maybe with one or two exceptions” sometime in 1Q 2027.

Banque du Caire is going public in a landmark IPO. On this episode of Making It, Hussein Abaza, the bank’s chief executive, joins Patrick to discuss the strategy behind the sale.

Listen to the episode on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anghami | YouTube

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MAJOR HEADLINES THIS WEEK-

This week’s headlines were dominated by protests over economic pressures across Europe, developments in the Russia-Ukraine war, and a fresh batch of business and tech updates. Here’s the rundown.

Protests involving around 550k people in France — driven by rising fuel prices, the cost of living, and deteriorating public services — led to around 1.8k arrests after violence spread across Paris, Marseille, Lille, and Lyon, with rioters starting fires, torching cars, looting shops, and clashing with police. The country’s weekend of riots and violent protests prompted Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez to offer his resignation, saying police had lost control, which President Emmanuel Macron rejected, instead pointing to “intelligence and foresight failings.”

Protests fueled by economic frustrations in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, and Albania soon followed as unrest took over the continent. The middle of the week saw the protests largely subside in France after authorities implemented stricter security measures, following calls from Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to impose an 11 pm curfew in several parts of Paris and rule out blanket curfews across entire cities. Amid multiple crises and mounting fiscal pressures, France’s yield on its 10-year government bonds hit 5% for the first time since 2002, reflecting growing investor concerns over the country’s public finances.

Meanwhile, on the Russia-Ukraine front, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending most of the Russia sanctions in a bipartisan law he approved last month, as he seeks to end the war in Ukraine and contain fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections. Tensions between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Trump emerged as Ukraine defied the proposed ceasefire with Russia when it launched one of its largest drone attacks on a key oil terminal earlier in the week. Tensions appeared to ease between the two leaders when the US resumed sharing intelligence with Kyiv on Russian missile strikes following a meeting with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Norway.

Reports floated of Russian President Vladimir Putin considering a three-way summit with Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to negotiate an end to the war, potentially without Ukraine on the table. Later in the week, Putin hosted Witkoff in St. Petersburg to discuss potential ceasefire terms with Ukraine, where Russia agreed to release 74-year-old US citizen Stephen Hubbard after four years in captivity. Peace hopes were dealt a blow overnight on Wednesday after a massive Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed two people, wounded 22, and hit civilian and energy infrastructure.

CLOSER TO HOME- The US Department of State made an order to withdraw non-essential staff and their family members from its embassy in Riyadh as Iran-backed Houthi forces intensify their attacks, following a string of near-daily attacks against the kingdom.

IN TECH NEWS- Anthropic is lining up a USD 60 bn debt package to help fund its purchase of about 1.5 GW of Google-developed custom semiconductors known as tensor processing units. Meanwhile, AI cloud computing company Nscale is negotiating to sell computing power to Anthropic — a transaction that could be worth approximately USD 45 bn for a second facility at Nscale’s Monarch data center campus in West Virginia. Also, the US banned Chinese AI firm DeepSeek and technology built using its models from civilian government systems, citing security concerns without specifying the risks.

AND- A discovery of critical vulnerabilities in PHP, an open-source programming language used to power around 70% of websites and web applications, forced websites worldwide to shut down on Thursday. Governments worldwide issued warnings about the vulnerabilities, which could allow hackers to access sensitive data, launch large-scale cyberattacks, and disrupt essential services.

IN THE BUSINESS PRESS- SoftBank is in early talks to buy Allied Universal in an acquisition that could value it at up to USD 18 bn excluding debt. CEO Elon Musk announced that SpaceX and Tesla set up special committees to explore a merger, expected to be the largest corporate merger ever. Negotiators have yet to reach an agreement. On Wednesday, the company posted better-than-expected revenue growth in 3Q, rising 161% y-o-y to USD 14.6 bn.