Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and happy Monday. Egypt Fashion Week is just around the corner, and we look at what it’s trying to do for the industry and who’s coming to help.
Elsewhere in today’s issue, we review the fourth season premiere of The Gilded Age, in which Christine Baranski, Carrie Coon, and Blake Ritson lead an ensemble in the juiciest material yet. It’s a calm day on the pitch with Europe taking a break, so the sports roundup catches you up on last night’s action, and more.
Onto the headlines…
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Here are the stories driving the day, both at home and abroad.Banque du Caire (BdC) ended its first week on the EGX up 5.5% from its EGP 5.30 offer price. The lender closed Monday at EGP 5.59 a share, according to market data. Turnover settled at around EGP 250 mn a session since the debut-day spike, 13% of what traded on 2 November, by our math.
Thin volume matters more than the price here. Institutions covered the private placement 5.95x — 19.79x excluding cornerstones — leaving plenty of funds that wanted stock at EGP 5.30 and didn’t get it. The state still has 55% of BdC to sell, and the stock’s first week dictates the pitch for every offering that follows.
The Niat and Rasgha wind projects at Ras Ghareb have reached financial close, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and German Investment Corporation (DEG) each providing a third of a USD 436 mn debt package (around USD 145.3 mn apiece, by our math), projects developer Alcazar Energy Partners said in a statement. The two 250 MW farms cost USD 626 mn combined and are due to start commercial operation by the end of 2028.
^^We’ll have more on these stories in tomorrow’s edition of EnterpriseAM.
☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Looks like winter is slowly approaching the capital as highs reach a breezy 25°C tomorrow before dropping to a chilly 15°C low overnight, according to our favorite weather app.
MAKING HEADLINES ABROAD-
Getting plenty of ink this afternoon are plans for US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thanito meet later today in Washington to discuss efforts to end the war with Iran. Coming off Republicans’ poor midterm performance, Trump struck an optimistic note and said renewed US strikes are “highly unlikely.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, was less upbeat, calling Iran’s negotiating demands “outrageous and ridiculous” and saying progress in peace talks remains slow.
IN OTHER NEWS- The EU has sued US enterprise tech provider IBM, French IT group Atos, and Italian defense contractor Leonardo over repeated delays in developing its new border-management system. EU-Lisa, the agency responsible for the bloc’s IT systems, filed the suit after a summer of widespread airport disruption, missed project deadlines, and disputes over warnings and fines.
MEANWHILE- As the Nvidia-China espionage scandal continues to dominate headlines, the tech giant’s shares fell nearly 5% in premarket trading today amid an internal company investigation into CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with a Chinese businesswoman reportedly linked to a foreign espionage operation.
Check the tag on a shirt from your favorite Western clothing chain, and there’s a fair chance it was cut and sewn in Egypt. Garment exports crossed USD 3 bn for the first time last year, hitting c. USD 3.1 bn in the first 11 months of 2025, up 22% y-o-y. Nearly all of that is contract manufacturing for foreign brands, and the EU and US alone took 82% of exports in 1Q 2026. The factories are busy, but the labels mostly belong to someone else.
TheEgyptian Fashion & Design Council (EFDC)would like to see more Egyptian names on the labels. Its third Egypt Fashion Week (EFW) runs from Thursday, 12 November to Saturday, 14 November, and it’s bringing in new friends to help, courtesy of the Brics Women’s Business Alliance (WBA) Egypt Chapter, with India as the guest country of honor.
Enter India
India currently chairs Brics and is sending a delegation from its Textiles Ministry and the Fashion Design Council of India, plus multiple prominent designers from the country, Indian Ambassador Suresh Reddy said at a press conference attended by EnterpriseAM, held at the Indian Embassy in Cairo last week.
India already has plenty of skin in the game. Some 70-75 Indian factories operate in Egypt, with nearly USD 5 bn in cumulative investment and around 45-48k Egyptian employees, Reddy said. An Indian group also recently committed USD 20 mn to Egypt’s denim and specialized fabrics sector, and talks are “actively underway” in other industries.
EFDC PresidentMarie Louis Bisharaarrived with a shopping list. Egypt spins extra-long-staple cotton, but its manufacturers import “substantial quantities” of synthetic and blended yarns from India, she said. Her own group brings in over 200k meters a year for specialized uniforms, EgyptAir’s cabin crew attire among them. The goal is joint ventures in Egypt for dope-dyeing and synthetic spinning, so local factories can make high-value technical textiles at home. Young Egyptian designers will also be heading to India for training in crafts like Indian embroidery.
Brick by Brics
EFDC made things official at the press conference, signing a cooperation protocol with the Brics Women’s Business Alliance (WBA) Egypt Chapter. The plan is to renew it every year, WBA Egypt Chapter Chair Marianne Ghali said. The alliance is bringing nearly 40 delegates from Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa, among them textile experts, manufacturers, and retailers. Two retail buyers from Kuwait’s Nass Boutique are also flying in.
“Egypt Fashion Week is designed as a business-to-business networking hub,” EFDC Secretary-General Susan Sabet said. International buyers and retailers are coming to “source Egyptian production, examine our local brands, and distribute them abroad,” she added.
Perfecting the pitch
“The biggest problem is financing. It’s always financing,” Sabet tells EnterpriseAM. EFDC is a nonprofit, so donations are tax-deductible: “You can write it off your taxes, so it doesn’t really cost you anything.”
That’s where the new Investor Pitch Sessions come in.Erada Finance is powering them, and fashion entrepreneurs will get their shot in front of potential investors. Over half of Erada’s financing portfolio goes to female-led enterprises and craftswomen, and the lender wants to help “scale artisanal and emerging design ventures into export-ready businesses,” Erada CEOAmr Aboelazm said. This edition of Egypt Fashion Week also debuts a Next Gen Designer Hub for emerging designers and an Egyptian Beauty Hub for the local beauty industry.
Cotton on the catwalk
EFW 2026is heading back to where it started: the Museum of Agriculture in Dokki, which hosted the first edition in 2023. The venue wasn’t picked at random. The museum houses Egypt’s Cotton Museum, which covers everything from Egyptian cotton to textiles and cotton from around the world. “We are cotton; Egypt’s industry is cotton,” Sabet tells us, calling it the most beautiful museum in Egypt.
More than 50 Egyptian designers are taking part, along with guest designers from India, China, Russia, Turkey, and Jordan. Here’s how the three days run:
Thursday, 12 November: An Indian Fashion Night at the Indian ambassador’s residence opens the week;
Friday, 13 November: The museum is open all day for runway shows, exhibitions, workshops, and panels. Six runway shows are on the schedule, opening with a Chinese show and closing with the Risky Boys, the crew that staged a runway at Wekalet El Balah a few years back. In the evening, the Turkish Embassy hosts an invitation-only show by designer Arzu Kaprol;
Saturday, 14 November: The museum is open for another full day, and the Jordanian Embassy closes the week with an invitation-only showcase of 10 Jordanian designers.
You don’t need a diplomatic passport to get in on the fun. The museum is open to the public on Friday and Saturday, and one ticket covers both days. The 2023 edition drew almost 6k visitors a day, so expect company. Off the runway, there are workshops, industry talks, and entertainment, plus a stop at the Egyptian Beauty Hub, and founders hoping to raise money can sign up for one-on-one investor pitches. The Indian collections from opening night will also be on display all weekend. General admission tickets and subsidized student passes are available on TicketsMarché.
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Missed this morning’s edition of EnterpriseAM? Here are the top stories in a nutshell.
The government isdeepening its rationing of industrial gas, raising curtailments for fertilizer and methanol plants to 33% as surging global LNG import costs force it to trim the fuel it can afford. Mopco is the only producer so far to confirm the higher level in a bourse filing yesterday. Abu Qir Fertilizers and Egyptian Chemical Industries (Kima) have confirmed only the 20% imposed on 1 November, which Kima set out in its latest EGX disclosure;
The new dynamic drug pricing formula isfacing its first test after the EGP’s October slide. Drugmakers are pushing for price increases of 20% to offset the weaker EGP and pricier raw materials. But any repricing will go through the new formula alone and must be backed by documents proving higher costs, according to the Egyptian Drug Authority and the pharma division of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce;
Orascom Construction’s boardapproved the capital increase needed to deliver its merger with Dutch-listed OCI Globalon Thursday, 5 November. The EGX-listed company is issuing 97.2 mn new shares to OCI, lifting its issued capital to USD 207.4 mn, up from USD 110.2 mn. That written resolution was the last scheduled approval step on Orascom’s side, coming after shareholder approval of the swap in January and OCI shareholders’ sign-off on 30 October. The new shares are due to list on the EGX and the ADX on 24 November;
Digitizeresumed trading on the EGX yesterdaywith two potential investors lined up. The company’s board accepted, in principle, non-binding letters of intent from Jeddah-based Pulse Horizons Holding and Egypt’s J-Technology for Business Solutions, both of which want to join the company’s restructuring and take part in a planned capital increase. The bourse has lifted the suspension and advised investors to exercise caution.
It’s a quiet Monday on the pitch, with Europe’s top leagues on pause for the international break and the Egypt Cup keeping the action at home. ZED host Sammanoud in the Round of 32 at 5pm on ON Sport Max. Earlier today, Wadi Degla took on Al Kahraba Al Ismaily.
ICYMI-
At home, the Egypt Cup Round of 32 had two upsets. Al Qanah beat Modern Sport 1-0 on a Moudi Shalata goal, and Petrol Asyut beat Tala’ea El Gaish by the same scoreline, with Tala’ea finishing the match with nine men after two red cards.
Across the pond, Manchester United came from 4-2 down in stoppage time to draw4-4with Aston Villa, with substitutes Joshua Zirkzee and Patrick Dorgu scoring late, though United remain in the relegation zone. Liverpool beat Crystal Palace 3-1, Brighton beat Brentford 2-0 to move up to second, and Sunderland beat Chelsea 1-0.
And in Spain, Barcelona came from behind to beat Atlético Madrid 2-1, with a Fermín López brace sending them three points clear at the top of La Liga.
In 1880s New York, a fortune could buy you a mansion but not an invitation. Four seasons in, Julian Fellowes’ The Gilded Age is still serving piping-hot afternoon tea, with Carrie Coon, Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Morgan Spector, and Louisa Jacobson leading one of the most crowded drawing rooms on television.
The plot: The city’s old-money guard is losing ground to a new class of railroad and industrial fortunes. Marian Brook (Jacobson) moves in with her wealthy, conservative aunts, Agnes van Rhijn (Baranski) and Ada Brook (Nixon), after her father’s death. Across the street, the Russells have the money but none of the invitations. Bertha (Coon) is determined to force her way into society while her husband George (Spector) builds his empire.
Season four is the reckoning. HBO’s logline says Bertha changed society at a cost, and the producers’ theme is: be careful what you wish for. Expect old ambitions to come due, with marriage on everyone’s minds and Oscar van Rhijn (Blake Ritson) and Enid Winterton (Kelley Curran) scheming to change their fortunes.
What we liked: The Gilded Age is by far one of the most refreshing shows on television right now. It puts its characters first, and its plots are slow burns with real payoff and no shock-value storytelling. The production is exquisite, from the costumes to the score to the performances, especially from Baranski, Jacobson, and, this season, Ritson. It handles class, romance, feminism, racism, and society with a deft touch, and it’s often very funny. It’s early in the season, but we’ll wager this is the show’s best and biggest yet.
The verdict: It’s absolutely worth your time. The narrative is cohesive, and the show is witty, emotional, and high-stakes in equal parts. If you’ve never watched, the earlier seasons are an easy binge. If you have, the new season rewards your patience.
WHERE TO WATCH- The Gilded Age is streaming on OSN+, with episodes dropping weekly on Mondays. Watch the trailer on YouTube (watch, runtime: 2:05).
The EGX30 rose 1.2% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 10.1 bn (9.4% below the 90-day average). Local investors were the sole net buyers. The index is up 22.9% YTD.
In the green: Raya Holding (+5.8%), E-finance (+5.1%), and Juhayna (+5.1%).
In the red: Abu Qir Fertilizers (-2.7%), Mopco (-2.6%), and ADIB (-1.2%).
Looking for a clever comedy night? Palestinian-American stand-up comedian Sammy Obeid is heading to Egypt on Saturday, 28 November for a show at New Cairo’s Teatro 90 as part of his The Wit Supremacy Tour. Known for his sharp punchlines, Obeid brings a special solo comedy hour that explores language, identity, and cultural nuances. The show kicks off at 8pm, with tickets available through TicketsMarché.
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