Companies paying for NUCA land in USD from abroad will skip the line and the bidding from November

Good morning, folks. You will read below about three things the government is doing at once right now: selling a slice of a bank, borrowing EGP 4.3 tn at home, and rewriting the tax rules.

Banque du Caire rings the EGX bell today as BQDC, and we will be watching the state’s first IPO since United Bank in December 2024. The draw was sizable — EGP 205.8 bn in orders, the most an EGX private placement has ever recorded. We will see what the first session does with a price that wasn’t discounted to its adviser’s fair value.

Leading the news well below: The government borrowed about EGP 4.3 tn at home in the first four months of FY 2026/27, per an official document we have seen — almost all of it to refinance existing debt. The latest rate hike makes that debt pricier, but a senior Finance Ministry official tells us local borrowing is still cheaper than the alternatives.

We sat down with Ramy Youssef, the deputy finance minister for tax policy, whose new strategy goes out for consultation before year-end. He tells us the planned levy of up to 4% on freezone goods sold into the local market won’t come until after the IMF’s eighth review closes, and it’s still under study. Things that stay the same (at least for now): no global minimum tax, the VAT threshold at EGP 500k, and no carbon tax or go-it-alone digital tax. What is coming is a new property tax app this month, and, separately, a digital price map by zone, published 90 days before any tax is tied to it.

And from Gourmet’s shelves: About 40% of what Gourmet sells now comes out of its own factory, Chief Innovation Officer Dalia Sultan told us on the latest episode of Making It, and the company wants that figure to reach 60%. Greek yoghurt came first, because nobody made it here and it couldn’t be imported at a sensible price; canned tomatoes and local mozzarella followed the same math.

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It’s mail time! Who writes EnterpriseAM’s subject lines? Why are our podcasts audio only? How do we preserve the craft of writing while integrating AI policies across the newsroom?

These are some of the questions readers and listeners have sent us over the years, so on an upcoming episode of Making It, Patrick and the team will answer them along with anything else you’re curious about: whether it’s about the business, our coverage, how the newsroom is run, or why we do things the way we do.

Have a question for us? Record it as a voice memo (30-45 seconds), tell us your name at the top, and send it to [email protected] by Saturday, 7 November. We’ll also take written questions, but since we’re an audio show, we’d love to play yours in your own voice.

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First pay, first served

Qualified Egyptian and foreign companies that commit to pay a land plot’s full price in USD wired from abroad get priority on any plot offered on installments and skip the price bidding, under a new “priority reservation” mechanism the Housing Ministry announced for November’s land offerings.

The entry ticket: register on NUCA’s foreign-investment portal and wire at least USD 100k from abroad by SWIFT, plus USD 5.5k. Once the transfer clears, NUCA books the plot immediately and stops taking requests from other companies for the same land, even if they filed first. The booking is provisional, not an allocation. The company then has one month from notification to wire the full price in USD, or the booking is canceled and USD 100k of what it paid is forfeited. A second track offers a selected group of “highly distinctive” plots sold only for 100% payment in USD from abroad, with no installment option.

For developers already inside the market, ACUD is drafting an incentives package that would give serious developers in the New Administrative Capital extra time in cases where they have completed a large share of construction but are stuck on financing the rest, a senior government official tells EnterpriseAM. It’s an alternative to withdrawing land and re-offering it, which takes longer and puts buyers’ rights at risk. It is also preparing to re-offer plots clawed back from defaulting investors, aiming them at foreign investors through direct allocation or auction.

Why it matters: The common lever in both moves is currency. The Central Bank’s balance-of-payments report put net foreign investment in Egyptian property at USD 2.8 bn in FY 2025/26, up 47% from USD 1.9 bn. Egypt has tried this trade once already: the cabinet approved an amendment to the foreign-ownership law in July 2023 that would drop the two-property cap, on condition that the buyer paid in hard currency from abroad. NUCA’s Decision 217 last August had already ranked large developers first and foreign-currency buyers third.

Merger on the horizon

Orascom Construction expects to complete its merger with Euronext-listed OCI in December, according to a company disclosure (pdf). OCI shareholders approved the move on 30 October, after securing Orascom Construction shareholders’ approval in January. The timetable could shift, the company says, since some steps hinge on third parties and regulatory approvals.

What’s next: Orascom Construction’s board will meet on Thursday to approve a capital increase and allot 97.2 mn new shares to OCI, subject to the agreement’s remaining conditions. The increase nearly doubles the company’s paid-in capital to USD 207.4 mn. The target date for issuing and listing the new shares on the ADX and the EGX is 24 November, with eligible OCI shareholders slated to receive their shares on or around 8 December. OCI will then delist from Euronext Amsterdam and be liquidated, according to NNS Holding’s offer memorandum (pdf).

Still in play: Nassef Sawiris’ family investment firm NNS Holding, which held c. 57.3% of OCI as of mid-September, is offering EUR 4.10 per share to OCI shareholders who prefer to exit rather than receive Orascom shares. The offer closes on 17 November unless extended. Separately, a petition by Dutch investment firm Value8 asking the Enterprise Chamber to stop the merger vote and investigate OCI was still pending as of mid-October. The merger agreement’s long-stop date is 30 December.

REMEMBER- The Enterprise Chamber barred OCI from voting on the merger in January over concerns about Sawiris’ role on both sides. Court-appointed directors agreed in July to allow a vote on condition that NNS’s offer is declared unconditional and settled.

Whatever floats your reactor

Russia’s Rosatom is in talks to supply Egypt with floating nuclear plants, Reuters reports, after CEO Alexei Likhachev named us alongside Togo, Namibia, and Tanzania as countries in active discussions. Rosatom is offering 100 MW units under a power purchase agreement model, with servicing and refueling done in Russia. Each unit can run for up to 60 years. No further details were given on capacity, unit count, or terms for Egypt.

Why it matters: Floating plants use smaller reactors and require less land infrastructure, making it possible to add power quickly and at lower cost, the newswire notes. The trade-off is scale: each floating unit is 100 MW, against 1.2 GW for each of El Dabaa’s four reactors. Only one floating nuclear plant is currently operational worldwide: Rosatom’s Akademik Lomonosov, which has powered Russia’s remote Chukotka region since 2020. The appeal for Egypt is gas: roughly half the gas supplying power at peak is now imported, as we covered in one of our Power Trip pieces in September. Electricity Minister Mahmoud Esmat said in August that El Dabaa alone could save about 8 bn bcm of gas.

ICYMI- The Electricity Ministry is studying at least two more reactors at El Dabaa, Esmat said in August, with no final investment decision, cost, or timeline announced. The existing 4.8 GW plant is estimated at USD 28.75 bn, with a reported USD 25 bn Russian loan covering 85%. It’s due to receive nuclear fuel in May 2027, and its first two units are scheduled to connect to the grid in 2028, and the other two in 2029.

Happening today

Banque du Caire rings the EGX bell in a couple of hours as it starts trading as BQDC, the state’s first IPO since United Bank in December 2024. The bourse’s three other debuts this year were private (Gourmet, Korra Energi, and MNT-Halan), and the roughly 20 state companies added to the EGX in between were temporary listings that sold no shares. Banque Misr sold 45% at EGP 5.30, the top of the range, raising EGP 36.37 bn (about USD 658 mn) and valuing the bank at EGP 80.83 bn (about USD 1.46 bn).

Demand got the sale there: The books opened on 19 October at 30% and EGP 4.82-5.30 a share; the private tranche sold out in hours and drew EGP 205.8 bn of orders — 6x, or 19.8x without the pre-committed cornerstones, the most an EGX private placement has recorded. The regulator then cleared 45%, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and International Finance Corporation put in USD 100 mn each. The two lenders plus four other cornerstone funds took about three-quarters of the placement.

We’ll be watching the floor and the float. Retail holds 343.1 mn shares and, for 30 days after the open, can sell them back at EGP 5.30 through a stabilization fund CI Capital runs on the retail proceeds; Banque Misr keeps 55% and is locked in, with EGX rules freezing 51% of the bank for two years. On price, the offer wasn’t discounted to its adviser’s number (EGP 5.30 is exactly Baker Tilly’s fair value, as banking analyst Hany Abou El Fotouh told us last week), though two brokerages put fair value at EGP 6.55 and EGP 7.80. “The real test starts when the stock starts trading,” he says.

PSA-

#1- Investors are being asked to help design Egypt’s first tax sukuk. The Tax Authority has opened a consultation on the inaugural issue, giving businesses and taxpayers 10 days to send views and proposals to the authority via email before it completes the executive rules, which it says it will publish once they are ready.

Details: The mechanism runs on a provision that has sat unused in the Income Tax Law since 2005 and was activated this year. Under the final offering rules seen by EnterpriseAM, subscriptions are collected at bank branches with the central bank and the EGX involved, and the Finance Ministry issues against those orders. Subscriptions are limited to between 20% and 25% of the income tax declared in last year’s return. The return is variable, paid at maturity, and exempt from all taxes — the central bank’s average deposit rate over the holding period minus 1%, or about 19% against October’s 20% deposit rate. Maturities follow the filing calendar: November 2026 through April 2027 for companies, and December 2026 to March 2027 for individuals.

#2- WEATHER- Cairo is in for a proper hot day today before a cool night kicks in, with a high of 32°C and a low of 20°C — two degrees hotter by day but two degrees cooler overnight than yesterday, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s the same beat on the coast in Alexandria too, with a high of 31°C and a low of 19°C.

The big story abroad

Hedging the AI wager: Companies are increasingly relying on financial derivatives such as put options and credit-default swaps to shield themselves from a possible downturn in AI stocks, with the price of default ins. on Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle climbing to its highest level since 2021. Neoclouds and data centers are also weighing put options linked to the price of computing power and compute indexes as a safeguard in case computing prices fall.

German ministers vowed harsh punishment for the rioters and looters who vandalized shops and left more than 100 police officers injured in Frankfurt overnight. They also commended security forces for stopping the unrest from spreading further. The violence centred on Frankfurt on Saturday, as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in dozens of German cities to call for better education and a lower cost of living. The rallies were organized by the campaign group “Gen Z regelt,” which roughly means “Gen Z takes charge.” Masked rioters in Frankfurt, Germany’s financial capital, damaged 17 shops and looted five.

Overnight attacks by Russia hit energy facilities in four Ukrainian regions and cut power to hundreds of thousands of homes, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Electricity was partly restored on Sunday as an unusual humanitarian ceasefire in the Kherson region came to an end. The truce had allowed civilians to leave the Russian-held city of Oleshky.

*** It’s Blackboard day: We have our weekly look at the business of education in Egypt, from pre-K through the highest reaches of higher ed.

In today’s issue: We look into how Egypt’s plans to revive its PPP language schools are being held up by a plot shortage in the second phase.