The Grand Egyptian Museum’s next act

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WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TONIGHT

USD falls below EGP 50 for the first time since March

Good afternoon, ladies and gents, and congratulations on making it to the long weekend. You’ve earned it — and we’re sending you off in style. Tonight’s football alone is worth staying up for: England vs. Croatia, a 2018 semifinal rematch, plus Messi’s hat trick from last night still rattling around in our heads.

Elsewhere in today’s issue, the Grand Egyptian Museum is redefining what a museum can be — ballet, opera, and the pyramids as a backdrop will do that — and we have an emotion-heavy novel worth cracking open over the break, and a Saturday plan involving yacht Pilates in Alexandria, if you're feeling particularly adventurous.

**A QUICK PROGRAMMING NOTE- EnterprisePM is taking a publication holiday tomorrow in observance of the Islamic New Year and will be back in your inboxes on Sunday afternoon. Until then, enjoy the long weekend.

Without further ado, the news…

THE BIG STORY TODAY-

📍 The USD fell below the psychological EGP 50 mark across several local banks on Wednesday for the first time since March, extending the EGP’s recovery as regional geopolitical friction eases and foreign currency liquidity strengthens. The greenback traded at EGP 49.96 (buy) and EGP 50.07 (sell) at state-owned NBE and Banque Misr, while the rate reached EGP 49.90 (buy) and EGP 50 (sell) at CIB.

Behind the rally: A government source tells EnterpriseAM that today’s EGP appreciation was driven primarily by the exceptionally strong inflows recorded in the secondary market yesterday, with foreign portfolio investments rising by USD 1.1 bn — the largest single-day inflow since March. The source notes that the market did not witness similarly exceptional inflows today as investors moved to exit positions in the secondary market to lock in gains, reflecting expectations of a potential rebound in both the exchange rate and yields on local debt instruments.

The correction marks a sharp reversal from the record highs of over EGP 54 triggered by the flare-up of the US-Iran war, fueled by a steady revival of hot money inflows, resilient remittances, and record-high foreign reserves. Banking expert Shaimaa Wagieh tells EnterpriseAM that breaking below EGP 50 is “a positive signal that reflects a relative improvement in foreign currency inflows and the return of some confidence to the FX market, particularly amid rising international reserves and improving external indicators.” However, Wagieh and London-based economist Ali Metwally both caution against assuming an immediate return to sub-EGP 48 pre-war baselines.

“The decline of the USD below EGP 50 does not mean we have returned to pre-war levels, nor that we are necessarily heading there. However, it remains an important and positive development that reflects improving market sentiment following a partial easing of regional geopolitical risks,” Metwally points out. He notes that high real interest rates continue to bolster the attractiveness of local debt, which, alongside sustained geopolitical calm and stable energy prices, could eventually anchor the exchange rate within the EGP 49-50 territory.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD-

🌐 Still dominating the front pages today are the terms included in the 14-point agreement between the US and Iran, published in full by CNN — though yet to be officially released by either government. The main terms include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, confirmation that Iran would never build a nuclear weapon, and an immediate and permanent end to all military operations in Lebanon. The final agreement will be approved through a binding resolution of the UN Security Council. The MoU also includes a USD 300 bn development fund designed to jumpstart investment in Iran.

^^Read more on: CNN, Reuters, and The Guardian.

MEANWHILE- Following a fresh wave of Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon earlier today — and despite criticism from US President Donald Trump of Israel’s actions in the country — the world leaders present at the G7 Summit in France issued a joint statement calling for an “immediate robust ceasefire” in Lebanon.

^^Read more on: BBC, Reuters, and the Guardian.

IN OTHER NEWS- The Federal Reserve System is set to reveal its latest interest rate decision today as policymakers navigate an economy grappling with its highest inflation levels in three years. The announcement marks the first rate decision since Kevin Warsh, a Trump nominee, began his four-year term as Fed chair last month — with markets anticipating a near-certain hold on the benchmark rate. The decision also comes at a pivotal moment for the US economy, with the US-Iran agreement offering a potential boost to inflation relief through easing energy price pressures.

^^Read more on: Reuters, CNBC, ABC News, and NBC News.

** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

The gov’t is delaying its promised overhaul of the solidarity contribution companies pay to help fund the Universal Health Ins. system. Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk has asked the House to defer plans to shift the levy’s calculation from gross revenues to net income, citing the heavy human development spending in the FY 2026/27 budget;
Egypt’s automotive market cooled in April, falling to 15.3k units from 17.8k in March as it digested two months of pulled-forward demand. Buyers had front-loaded purchases through February and March to beat price hikes and Red Sea shipping disruptions, leaving April to absorb the correction;
Osool Securities Brokerage plans on upping its stake in real estate blue-chip Talaat Moustafa Group. The brokerage firm’s current position in TMG is less than 5%. Neither the size of the planned increase nor its timeline was disclosed;
Fintech platform Valu secured a EGP 600 mn loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to finance household purchases of energy-efficient and renewable technologies. The facility aims to drive retail adoption of solar power and electric mobility.

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Cairo’s weather remains pleasantly warm tomorrow, with a high of 35°C and a low of 24°C. Meanwhile, it’s cooler on the coast, with highs of 29°C and breezier lows of 21°C, according to our favorite weather app.

The GEM’s next act

💃 One year into full operation, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) is attempting something different. What does the world's largest archaeological museum dedicated to a single civilization do for an encore once every gallery is open?

Part of the answer arrives on 5 November, when the GEM hosts Gala de Danza — a single-evening production of international ballet, contemporary dance, opera, and immersive performance staged against the museum’s galleries, with the pyramids in the distance. It will be the travelling gala’s first event in the MENA region and its ninth edition overall.

“The concept of museums is changing, and we are trying to lead this wave,” Dr. Ahmed Ghoneim, the museum's CEO, tells EnterpriseAM. “Museums are no longer just places to showcase artifacts. We have a societal role to play.” Since the GEM's opening in November 2025, Ghoneim has cast the institution as “a dynamic cultural and heritage destination.” “Partnerships like this one,” he said at a press conference attended by EnterpriseAM, “are about showcasing the soft power of Egypt at a moment when the country continues to strengthen its position as a global cultural and tourism destination.”

Organizers are counting on more than 1.5k guests and VIPs to attend. The event is expected to attract both local guests and high-margin, international audiences that this type of premium cultural tourism is built to capture. Gala de Danza Founder and Artistic Director Christina Lyon, a former dancer who started the gala in Los Cabos, Mexico, in 2013, says she hopes to make Cairo a repeat venue, collaborating with the GEM well beyond a single night.

The playbill includes a multinational cast of over 150 artists. Royal Ballet principals Cesar Corrales and Francesca Hayward, the Mariinsky's Maria Khoreva, San Francisco Ballet principal Madeline Woo, and Paris Opera Ballet's Shale Wagman headline a roster that also features quirkier contemporary artists like the UK's Rambert, French immersive studio Magiclab, and musical talent like Saudi Arabia's first opera singer, Sawsan Albahiti.

The thread with the most weight for Egypt runs through the inclusion of local talent. “Open auditions for young Egyptian performers, advertised on social media and through local ballet academies, drew more than 500 applications,” Lyon tells EnterpriseAM. “The response was overwhelming. Unfortunately, we had to cap the auditions at 300; 50 will make the production,” she adds. “We're creating a platform where these young Egyptian dancers get to perform, be seen and mentored,” Saida El Harakany, director of cultural programming at Legacy, the operators of the GEM, tells us.

No one carries that thread more visibly than Luca Abdel Nour. The Cairo-born dancer began his training at the Premier Ballet Academy in Cairo, founded by Ahmed Yehia and Anja Ahčin — both principal dancers with the Cairo Opera Ballet Company — who spotted his potential early and engineered his route abroad. “We sent him abroad to the Hungarian Dance Academy, then we succeeded in getting him a scholarship in 2018 for the Zurich Ballet School, which was one of the best at the time,” Ahčin tells us. “Then he went to the Prix de Lausanne, where he won second prize. We continue to follow his career, and we’re really proud of him.” Today, Abdel Nour is a coryphée at Dutch National Ballet .

At the GEM, Abdel Nour will dance in his home country for the first time as a professional. “It will be a world premiere and a homecoming,” says Lyon. She called it significant enough that “his directors at Dutch National Ballet will be coming to Egypt, because it's such an important milestone in Luca's career.” El Harakany put the symbolism more plainly: “the gala,” she says, “will welcome back home one of its own.”

Lyon, for her part, keeps returning to the grandeur of the venue. Her stated motto — “bringing beautiful artistry to extraordinary places” — is a strong selling point for the cultural programming the GEM would like to continue attracting.

In the past, the museum has hosted artists like Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, who first performed at the GEM’s pre-opening in 2022. Since 2025, the GEM has hosted a concert series that included eclectic performances by Croatian cellist Hauser, R&B singer Brian McKnight, British singer-songwriter Calum Scott, and Canadian musician Bryan Adams. The Gala de Danza will be the GEM’s first dance event.

Love, grief, and nostalgia in Heart the Lover

💡 Love stories are a dime a dozen, but stories that explore the intricacies, complexities, and dangers of love are few and far between. American author and celebrated literary figure Lily King is certainly no stranger to the latter, and her latest work, Heart the Lover, offers a brilliant dissection of what it means to love, lose, and — most importantly — be human.

The plot: Our narrator — a senior-year writer nicknamed Jordan — falls in with Sam and Yash, two classmates living in a professor’s mansion off-campus. Shared literary passion and evenings reading ancient poetry bind the three quickly, and Jordan and Sam soon become romantically entangled. But class divides and Sam's failure to truly see her strain the relationship as Jordan feels a mutual pull toward Yash. As one relationship ends and another begins, the trio’s bond is irrevocably damaged — and each faces a choice that means leaving someone behind. Then three decades pass.

What we loved: Written in the first person in a stream-of-consciousness style, the novel essentially functions as a memory vault — one that operates on a non-linear trajectory, oscillating between past and present; euphoria and despair. King’s prose is tight, intimate, beautiful yet grounded. There is no pretense, and the reader is presented with the narrator’s most intimate and unvarnished thoughts. The 250-page novel is also a love letter to the art of writing and literature — with a slew of poetry and literary references scattered throughout.

Heart the Lover may be about love — but it’s as far from a romance as can be. The author dexterously explores grief, mortality, loss, and nostalgia, making for a compact read that is impactful. Despite functioning as both a prequel and a sequel to King’s 2020 hit Writers & Lovers, Heart the Lover is written as a standalone that doesn’t require readers to have explored its predecessor — in fact, we only realized the connection embarrassingly too late.

The verdict: We teared up several times while reading Heart the Lover — do with that information what you will. Despite its relative brevity — we finished the book in just two sittings — it felt like a world unto itself, an entire lifetime boiled down in the most devastatingly beautiful way. While the first half of the novel may drag at times, the latter half is utterly gripping. If you’ve got a knack for literary fiction that incessantly tugs at one’s heartstrings, Heart the Lover needs to be on your to-be-read list.

WHERE TO GET IT- You can keep an eye out for a restock of the paperback edition at Diwan and Bookspot, get the eBook on Amazon, or listen to the audiobook on Storytel — which is how we enjoyed the novel.

Messi, Mbappé, Haaland delivered. Now, England and Portugal

⚽ We’re in for a footie-packed long weekend — starting tonight with Groups K and L. Portugal kicks things off at 8pm, facing DR Congo at Houston Stadium. Then the pick of the evening: England vs. Croatia at 11pm at Dallas Stadium in Arlington, Texas — a rematch of the 2018 semifinal, which Croatia had snagged 2-1. Later tonight, Ghana vs. Panama at 2am and Uzbekistan vs. Colombia at 5am.

💡 NOTE- All World Cup matches will be broadcast on beIN Sports Max 1 and 2.

What we’re watching this long weekend

Groups A and B return to action Thursday night into Friday morning, starting with Czechia facing off South Africa at 7pm, followed by Switzerland vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina at 10pm, Canada vs. Qatar at 1am Friday, and Mexico vs. South Korea at 4am.

On Friday, the US play their second game against Australia at 10pm, Scotland face Morocco at 1am Saturday, and Brazil take on Haiti at 3:30am. Saturday evening will see the big guns take the field, with the Netherlands vs. Sweden at 8pm in Houston, Germany vs. Ivory Coast at 11pm in Toronto, Ecuador vs. Curaçao — who we’ll admit we’re rooting for — at 3am Sunday, and Tunisia vs. Japan at 7am.

🥅 ICYMI-

Last night was one for the books. France edged Senegal 3-1 in what turned into a breathless finish in New Jersey — all three French goals came in the second half after a flat 45 minutes. Mbappé broke the deadlock in the 66th minute with a first-time finish from Michael Olise’s defense-splitting pass, then Bradley Barcola came off the bench to make it 2-0 in the 82nd.

Senegal hit back through 18-year-old substitute Ibrahim Mbaye in the 90th minute — the youngest African scorer in World Cup history — only for Mbappé to immediately blast in a stunning long-range strike in the 96th minute, sealing the victory and making him France’s all-time top scorer with 58 goals. Two goals in two minutes of stoppage time turned the game on its head just after Senegal thought they were back in it.

Norway’s Erling Haaland then scored twice on his World Cup debut — Norway having last appeared at the tournament in 1998, two years before he was born — as they put four past Iraq in Boston. The night’s headline act, though, was Messi: the Argentina captain scored the first World Cup hat trick of his career, leading the defending champions to a 3-0 victory over Algeria in Kansas City and tying Miroslav Klose’s all-time record of 16 World Cup goals.

**Don’t miss out on the fierce competition in the EnterpriseAM Fantasy World Cup — click on this link or use the code 2CUFGASD to join.

World Fit Gym is bringing Pilates to the Mediterranean

⛴️ How about yacht Pilates for your summer plans? This Saturday, 20 June, World Fit Gym is taking Pilates to the Mediterranean with a private yacht session off Alexandria’s coast at the Egyptian Fishing Club. The women-only, curated event includes a Zumba warm-up, a matcha tasting, two wellness talks, and exclusive giveaways. Spots are limited — request yours through World Fit Gym’s website.

What the markets are doing on 17 June 2026

The EGX30 rose 1.1% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 12.1 bn (40.8% above the 90-day average). International investors were the sole net buyers. The index is up 25.8% YTD.

In the green: Raya Holding (+4.1%), CIB (+2.7%), and Palm Hills Developments (+2.5%).

In the red: ADIB (-2.1%), Qalaa Holdings (-1.6%), and EFG Holding (-1.4%).

THE ENTERPRISEPM ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR

🗓️ JUNE

7 April - 20 June (Tuesday-Saturday): Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience at District 5 by Marakez in New Cairo.

10 June - 1 July (Wednesday-Wednesday): Artozium at AUC New Cairo.

13 - 27 June (Saturday-Saturday): One Mn In Your Pocket - Real Estate Training at Tolip El Narges, New Cairo.

13 June - 1 July (Saturday-Wednesday): Miriam Hathout: Donkey-Full Summer at Bugendai, O1 Mall in New Cairo.

17 June (Wednesday): Islamic New Year.

18 June (Thursday): Public holiday in observance of Islamic New Year.

18 June (Thursday): Dr. Khaled Ghattass at Al Manara Main Hall.

19 June (Friday): Disco Misr at The Village, Sheikh Zayed.

20 June (Saturday): Yacht Pilates with World Fit Gym in Alexandria.

20 June (Saturday): Mohamed Helmy’s Globally Local 2nd Show at Cairo Stadium.

20 June (Saturday): Mazeek and BlackTheama at CJC 610.

21 June (Sunday): Medhat Saleh at the Cairo Opera House, Zamalek.

24 June (Wednesday): Al Nather at CJC 610.

24 June (Wednesday): Decision Makers Conference at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

25 June (Thursday): Elissa at Almasa Hotel in Nasr City.

26 June (Friday): Hamaki at El Arena.

26 June (Friday): The Play Festival at City Gate, New Cairo.

26 June (Friday): Ain Gamal Vol. 63 at The Theater, Movenpick, 6th of October City.

27 June (Saturday): Tamer Ashour at The Mall of Mansoura.

27 June (Saturday): Daleela Summit at Townhall, District 5.

28-29 June (Sunday-Monday): Omar Khairat at the Cairo Opera House, Zamalek.

16 April - 30 June (Thursday-Tuesday): Early bird registration for The Marakez Pyramids Half Marathon.

30 June (Tuesday): June 30th Revolution.

JULY

1 July - 2 November (Wednesday-Monday): General registration for The Marakez Pyramids Half Marathon.

6-20 July (Monday-Monday): Bibliotheca Alexandrina International Book Fair.

7-11 July (Tuesday-Saturday): Khayal Mareed Play at Theatro Arkan.

10 July (Friday): Ghaiboba by Saleh El Nawawy at Teatro 90.

23 July (Thursday): July 23rd Revolution 1952.

23 July (Thursday): Marwan Pablo & Lege-Cy at Porto Golf.

24 July (Friday): Adriatique at the North Coast.

31 July (Friday): Shorelines Festival at Almaza Bay.

AUGUST

6 August (Thursday): Deep House Bible at North Coast.

6-15 August (Thursday-Saturday): The Garden Market at Lakeyard, Hacienda Bay, North Coast.

7 August (Friday): Sherine at Porto Golf, Alamein City.

7 August (Friday): Cairokee at D-Bay, North Coast.

21 August (Friday): Black Coffee at Cubix North Coast.

25 August (Thursday): Prophet Muhammad’s Birthday.

SEPTEMBER

26 September (Saturday): John Achkar’s Feena Nehke at Theatro Arkan.

OCTOBER

1-4 October (Thursday-Sunday): She Arts festival across Cairo and Alexandria.

6 October (Tuesday): Armed Forces Day.

15-23 October (Thursday-Friday): El Gouna Film Festival.

24 October (Saturday): Blue 25th Anniversary Tour at New Capital.

28-31 October (Wednesday-Saturday): Egypt’s Cheese Festival at Al Horreya Garden, Zamalek.

NOVEMBER

5 November (Thursday): Gala De Danza at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

11-20 November (Wednesday-Friday): Cairo International Film Festival.

28 November (Saturday): Shakira at the Pyramids of Giza.

DECEMBER

11-12 December (Friday-Saturday): TheMarakezPyramids Half Marathon at the Pyramids of Giza.

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