No impulse-buying Ferraris

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WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TONIGHT

THIS EVENING: Egypt is joining Brics next year

Happy THURSDAY, ladies and gentlemen. We’re sliding into what is either the last or the second-to-last weekend of the summer and of Sahel season (depending on how strictly you apply the August vs September delineation). Whichever side of the fence you’re on, we hope you have a restful few days before we begin the last workweek of the month.

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Egypt is among six countries set to join Brics in 2024 as part of the bloc’s expansion, Brics Chairman and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said today, according to the Associated Press. Also joining the group of developing economies: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, Ethiopia, and Argentina.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

Picking up where we left off this morning, Yevengy Prigozhin’s plane crash and the US Republican debate are continuing to lead the conversation in the international business press:

Prigozhin, Wagner chief and strongman who led an aborted mutiny last June has died after the plane that he was on was shot down near Moscow yesterday. All the people on board, ten passengers and three crew members, have been killed. (Reuters | BBC | Financial Times | Wall Street Journal | Washington Post)
Rowdy, even without Trump: The Republican debates were lively and heated, despite Agent Orange’s absence. Honorable mentions go to Vivek Ramaswamy, a novice to the political game, and Mike Pence, the former vice-president, a seasoned member of the party. (BBC | Financial Times | Wall Street Journal | The Washington Post | CNBC)

PSA- Calling all prospective master’s students: Applications for the UK government’s Chevening scholarship will open from Tuesday, 12 September and close on 7 November. The scholarship offers full financial support for students to pursue an eligible master’s degree at over 150 UK universities. Applications will be open here.

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

We could soon be importing more Israeli gas: Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said yesterday that Israel will increase gas exports to Egypt from its offshore Tamar field.
The redevelopment of the former NDP HQ appears to be moving forward after Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly last week transferred to the land to two developers who, according to the chairman of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt’s tourism sub-fund, will embark on a USD 5 bn project backed by Gulf capital.
Tarboul gets the green light: The General Authority for Investment and Freezones (GAFI) has approved GV Investments ’ ambitious Tarboul industrial project in Giza.

CHECK OUT OUR AGENDA-

The Enterprise Finance Forum is taking place on 18-19 September at the St. Regis Hotel in Cairo. This flagship forum is the latest in our must-attend series of invitation-only, C-suite-level gatherings that allow senior members of our community to openly and frankly discuss critical issues in key sectors of the economy.

This is our first two-day event,which should give us plenty of time to dive into the nitty gritty of this industry we love. Our panels will see CEOs, bankers, investors and founders gather to discuss the future and trends shaping banking, finance, fintech and NBFS.

Our full agenda will be out at month’s end. Among the topics we’ll be discussing:

Looking into the crystal ball: Top industry CEOs will join us on stage to answer tough questions on where we are as an industry, the forces that will shape all of our businesses going forward, and their views on dealflow in the year ahead.

Surviving nuclear winter: We discuss how private equity and venture capital players are tackling challenges including fundraising and deployment in an environment in which it’s awfully difficult to price your local asset in USD terms.
The robots are coming: We explore what the coming AI and big data means for the industry in our part of the world and what can bankers, NBFI, and fintech players do to capitalize on them.
What do you do when nobody wants to be a banker — and when those who are already (investment or commercial) bankers are either (a) dreaming of doing their own startup or (b) moving to Dubai (or, increasingly, Riyadh)? We go deep into the weeds with industry leaders on how they’re building talent for tomorrow.
NBFIs are a bubble. Prove me wrong: We chart the explosive rise of NBFIs and ask whether the industry is ready for a wave of consolidation. We’ll dive into whether consumer finance is starting to mature as a segment — and ask which sector is next.
Fintech in 2024: What’s hot and what’s not: We dive deep into which categories are getting traction, where the untapped potential is, what business they would start today if they could, and what we can expect of the sector in the year ahead.
What’s a bank, anyway? Wherein we talk challenger and neobanks with the players looking to shake up the brick-and-mortar industry.

** NEW: MORE NETWORKING TIME- Our agenda includes expanded networking time, including an expanded coffee break and a post-event networking room for you to interact with your peers and speak one-on-one with the team at Enterprise.

STAY TUNED for more detail about our exciting agenda in the weeks to come.

TAP OR CLICK HERE if you want to express interest in attending. We’ll be sending out the first batch of invitations soon.

Do you want to become a commercial partner? Ping a note to Moustafa Taalab, our head of commercial.

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- The mercury is rising to 41°C tomorrow at its peak in the daytime and will settle to 24°C at its lowest in the evening, according to our favorite weather app.

India is leading this century’s space race + Ferrari’s market is growing younger

India just cracked the space race to the south pole of the moon, becoming the first country to successfully complete the feat. The Indian Space Research Organization was able to safely land an unmanned probe on the south pole of the moon, notorious for its rough and unexplored terrain. This comes just days after Russia’s spacecraft — the country’s first mission to the moon in 50 years — crashed in an unsuccessful attempt. India’s achievement is especially impressive given that its space funding budget — USD 1.5 bn — is 6% of NASA’s budget, which stands at USD 26 bn.

The importance of the lunar south pole is due to its available water resources, which scientists and engineers hope will facilitate missions to other parts of the solar system as well as become a natural resource during long-term settlements on the moon. Water on the moon’s surface was likely created by asteroid strikes, forming glass beads from the extreme high temperature, and irradiated by a reaction with solar winds. While these beads only range from a few micrometers to a few millimeters, scientists estimate that 71 tn gallons of water can be found on the moon.

Meta’s Threads is starting to roll out its web version, Threads.net , with the website currently up and running but not yet available for everyone, according to CNBC. The move comes as part of a focus to improve Threads before monetizing it, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on an earnings call, according to CNBC.The strategy is for Threads to be a “a vibrant long-term app” by being more accessible to users and closely resembles X (formerly Twitter). This comes after the app was criticized for its poor design and lack of the search feature that made its contender much more appealing.

You can’t impulse buy a Ferrari, and CEO Benedetto Vigna doesn’t want you to. The iconic car manufacturer has a waiting list of a whopping three years and zero plans to increase production to meet demand, Vigna told CNBC. The CEO believes that the value of their cars comes from their exclusivity, saying that making more just for growth’s sake would be “offensive.” In 2022, Ferrari increased manufacturing by 18.5%, producing just over 13k cars, though analysts believe the company could sell twice as many cars as they make. While its ethos is built on inaccessibility, as most luxury brands are, these limitations on sales don’t appear to be putting a damper on its performance, with Ferrari shares up 44% y-o-y.

The company’s new client base is starting to skew younger, with 30% of new Ferrari clients aged below 40 — while their client base has expanded for 10 consecutive quarters. This hints at a fresh supply of loyal customers, signifying that, according to Vigna, “the prancing horse is kicking strong.” Part of Ferrari’s brand is its scarcity, and not being able to buy one easily, or quickly, is part of its official corporate policy. Vigna describes it as an “experience” that begins the first time you see a Ferrari.

Poker Face: A murder mystery from the creator of Knives Out

? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
(all times CLT)

Murder-mystery Poker Face , courtesy of Rian Johnson of Knives Out and The GlassOnion fame: If you’ve got nine hours to spare, we suggest you spend them on this series starring Natasha Lyonne as Charlie, a casino worker with an almost supernatural ability to tell when someone is lying. A love letter to the classic weekly murder-mystery TV shows of the 70s and 80s, Charlie starts using her gift to uncover murders she encounters on the road. Each episode introduces a brand new cast (save for Lyonne) and a convoluted Columbo-style case to solve. In a unique twist, the culprit is made known to the viewer from the start, and our focus isn’t on who did it, but whether Charlie will figure it out — she doesn’t know what the truth is, but she knows what it isn’t. Guest stars featured on the show include Adrien Brody, Ron Perlman, Chloë Sevigny, and Jameela Jamil. If you’ve been looking to scratch your Rian Johnson itch, you might want to parcel the show’s 10 episodes out until his next project.

Premier League: Week three of the English Premier League starts tomorrow at 10pm with one match that brings together Chelsea and Luton Town. Meanwhile, Saturday starts with the Bournemouth and Tottenham match at 2:30 pm, followed by another four matches at 5pm, the most important of which is Arsenal taking on Fulham and Manchester United facing Nottingham Forest.

Other matches to catch:

Brentford v Crystal Palace (5pm)
Everton v Wolverhampton (5pm)
Brighton v West Ham (7:30pm)

The action is already packed in the Enterprise Fantasy League — join us, why don’t you? Get in on the excitement by clicking on this link or entering this code abd0f7.

Other top European league matches this weekend:

Celta Vigo v Real Madrid (La Liga, 10:30pm Friday)
Sevilla v Girona (La Liga, 10:30pm Saturday)
Verona v Roma (Serie A, 9:45pm Saturday)
Milan v Torino (Serie A, 9:45pm Saturday)
RB Leipzig v Stuttgart (Bundesliga, 9:30pm Friday)
Bochum v Borussia Dortmund (Bundesliga, 4:30pm Saturday)
Monchengladbach v Leverkusen (Bundesliga, 7:30pm Saturday)
Nantes v Monaco (Ligue 1,10 pm Friday)
Paris Saint-Germain v Lens (Ligue 1, 10pm Saturday)

Swedish-Syrian singer Faya Younan and Medhat Saleh will be performing at the opening concert tomorrow, 25 August.
Cairo Symphonic Orchestra and Wust El Balad band will be performing this Saturday, 26 August.
Hany Shaker will perform on Sunday, 27 August.
Hisham Abbas and Simone will perform on Monday, 28 August.
Mostafa Haggag will perform on Tuesday, 29 August.
Ali El Haggar will be performing on Thursday, 31 August.
Musician Hisham Kharma and the Tunsian singer Ghalia Benali will be performing on Sunday, 3 September.

Russ is coming to New Alamein. American pop star Russ will be performing as part of the New Alamein Festival tomorrow. Tickets are available on Tazkarti.

Get some more laughs over the weekend with The Elite Standup tomorrow at Paragon Beach Hub, New Alamein. The show will start at 7pm. Tickets are available on Tazkarti.

Cairokee x New Alamein Festival . Catch Cairokee in the few weekends left in Sahel as they perform this Saturday, 26 August in New Alamein as a part of the Alamein Music Festival. Tickets are available on Tazkarti.

Aziz Maraka x City Center Almaza. The Jordanian singer Aziz will be performing at the opening of City Garage Hub' at City Center Almaza Mall next Tuesday, 29 August. Tickets are available on Tazkarti.

El Morabba3 is coming to Egypt. The Jordanian rockband El Morabba3 will be performing in two concerts, the first one will be at the closing ceremony of the International Summer Festival that will be held at Bibliotheca Alexandrina on Friday, 1 September. The second one will be at El Sawy Culturewheel on Sunday, 3 September. Tickets are available here for Bibliotheca Alexandrina and here for El Sawy CultureWheel.

DJs Kygo , Tiësto, Kungs and Frank Walker are performing on Saturday, 28 October at the Giza Pyramids. The concert will be part of the next edition of the four-day Palm Tree Music Festival (PTMF) which will be held from Thursday, 26 October until Sunday, 29 October.

Get your running shoes ready for the 2023 edition of the El Gouna Half Marathon, which is scheduled to take place on Saturday, 11 November. You can sign up for the marathon from here — and catch the lowest registration price with the early bird special which starts today and ends Saturday, 30 September.

Money Talks by the Economist is an informative economic capsule that provides a profound and well-rounded take on ongoing stories connected to markets, the economy and business trends in 30-40 minutes. A new episode on a different topic is dropped every Thursday, and is usually hosted by different editors and correspondents, with insights from subject matter experts. Expect to find coverage of inflation, the impact of AI and robots on our lives, fragile and strong economies, among other topic. A recent episode of note on green flying talks about the aviation sector’s hopes of achieving net-zero by 2050 and how battery-powered flight will function on the world’s first trips. You can find Money Talks on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Anghami.

Spend without guilt — and still save money: Ramit Sethi echoes Rich Dad, Poor Dad in his own book, I Will Teach You to be Rich, which adds to the literature on how to invest in a way that makes “money grow for you.” Sethi explains that spending money on the things you love is not an expense that should be cut back — but rather that you can save a ton while still enjoying your favorite things. Overcoming debt and student loan burdens, choosing the right bank accounts, and long-term investing are just some of the many draining costs Ramit covers. Along with some invaluable wisdom about managing your money, this book contains success stories of people who used Ramit’s principles to achieve a richer life. This book is available on Amazon.

What the markets are doing on 24 August, 2023

The EGX30 rose 0.4% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 2.1 bn (2.6% above the 90-day average). Regional investors were net buyers. The index is up 24.7% YTD.

In the green: Ezz Steel (+7.4%), Elsewedy Electric (+4.9%) and Abu Qir fertilizers (+2.6%).

In the red: Beltone Financial Holding (-2.4%), Eastern Company (-2.2%) and Heliopolis Housing (-1.8%).

Password-sharing crackdowns and the ethics of piracy in the twilight of streaming services

When it comes to the entertainment industry, the more things change the more they stay the same: Traditional TV is dying, ad revenue is raking in pennies, and streaming isn’t profitable. Now that the lights in Hollywoodland have been turned off for the first time in 60 years in light of the SAG-AFTRA strikes and production has come to a grinding halt, streaming services may not only become our only source of entertainment for the near future, but also the only source of income for production companies. These developments could also trigger policy changes in the landscape, including the pricing of services and regulations on how we consume entertainment on these platforms.

The password-sharing crackdown has already begun: Netflix has been taking steady steps towards crushing the password-sharing era, making an about turn from its earlier days of saying that “Love is sharing a password” towards limiting account usage to a single household. And while many streaming companies have been tinkering with their business models in the face of competition — many hiking their prices significantly, with some packages seeing 20-27% increases — only Netflix has come after account sharing so aggressively.

What’s been leading to this shift? Netflix’s seemingly unstoppable success — up until last year, when they saw a decline in subscribers for the first time in a decade — caught the attention of several media conglomerates who were suddenly dissatisfied with licensing their content to the streaming service, seeing potential revenue streams in creating their own platforms. Netflix’s drop in subscribers, now that licensed shows were being pulled from its platform and paying customers had to decide which services to subscribe to, are starting to push forward major changes in the company’s policies.

Instead of being able to find all your favorite movies and shows on a single platform, you now have to subscribe to Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video. If you use a VPN, you can watch popular media that you would’ve otherwise missed on Hulu, Max (formerly HBO Max), and Paramount. If you watch anime, add Crunchyroll and Funimation to the list.

We’ve come full circle back to the days of yore: To tackle the ballooning price of monthly subscriptions, these streaming services — many of which are owned by the same companies — have come up with an ingenious, never-seen-before, innovative solution: Cable TV. Oops, we mean streaming bundles. You can subscribe to Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ for USD 20 per month. You’ll still need to download each app separately though. Even the highest-priced bundles don't actually exempt you from having to watch ads.

The decision to make sharing accounts that much more inconvenient has been so widely unpopular that online publications everywhere are sharing tips on how to circumvent it . Netflix has reversed course on many of its initial stances that made it alluring for subscribers, first by adding an ad-supported tier after ardently asserting that they would never resort to ads on their platform. Shedding the relatable “brands are our friends” persona they cultivated on Twitter (ehm… X), users may feel a breach of an unspoken (and parasocial) mutual loyalty. For several reasons, mainly accessibility, users may find themselves questioning the corporate ethics of piracy. It’s unclear whether streaming services are taking this into consideration when making these decisions, but the reality is that they will definitely have to face it.

That raises the question: Is piracy really even unethical? The consensus on the interwebs is… Yes, but sometimes no . There’s much to be said about media piracy and how technological advancements have shaped our understanding of the ethics of content consumption. Most of us grew up with the rise of online media, and you’ve probably seen this anti-piracy trailer playing over a thousand times ahead of films on DVDs or even VHS tapes. Ultimately, piracy is not only a debate centered on the lawful limitations on media consumption, but an inherently philosophical one.

Even the lawyer world isn’t fully against piracy: A study conducted among Harvard lawyers found that most lawyers believe that casual piracy is ethically acceptable. More than 100 lawyers were tasked with evaluating various piracy scenarios and the results were presented on a five-point scale, 1 being very unacceptable, and 5 being very acceptable. These scenarios covered downloading legally-unavailable content (uncomfortably relatable for those of us living in countries where many streaming services aren’t accessible without VPN), pirating simply to save money, accessing educational material hidden behind paywalls or found in overpriced textbooks, to downloading content for commercial purposes.

The broad consensus is that piracy is situationally ethical: “We find that digital file sharing ranks relatively high in terms of ethical acceptability among our population of lawyers — with the only notable exception being infringing copyright with a commercial purpose.” The most acceptable reasons behind piracy, according to the results, were the lack of lawful accessibility, lack of financial resources, and pirating for educational purposes.

More questions than answers: There remain many questions about the balance between prioritizing a company’s income and allowing for the accessibility of experiencing art and media. What we can say for certain is that the major changes to how subscriptions work, which have affected the compensation writers and actors receive and the convenience of streaming services have sparked a philosophically, legally, and economically complicated debate that will reshape the way we consume media in the years to come.

THE ENTERPRISE ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR

AUGUST

25 August (Friday): Faya Younan and Medhat Saleh concert, Citadel Festival for Music and Singing, Citadel Salah El Din, Cairo.

25 August (Friday): Russ Concert, New Alamein Festival 2023, New Alamein.

25 August (Friday): The Elite stand up comedy performance, New Alamein Festival 2023, Paragon Beach Hub, New Alamein.

26 August (Saturday):Cairokee concert, New Alamein Festival, New Alamein.

26 August (Saturday): Cairo Symphonic Orchestra and West El Balad band, Citadel Festival for Music and Singing, Citadel Salah El Din, Cairo.

27 August (Sunday): Hany Shaker concert, Citadel Festival for Music and Singing, Citadel Salah El Din, Cairo.

28 August (Monday): Hisham Abbas and Simone concert, Citadel Festival for Music and Singing, Citadel Salah El Din, Cairo.

29 August (Tuesday): Aziz Maraka concert, City Center Almaza Mall, Cairo.

31 August (Thursday): Ali El Haggar concert, Citadel Festival for Music and Singing, Citadel Salah El Din, Cairo.

SEPTEMBER

1 September (Friday): El Morabba3 band concert, Summer International Festival, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria.

3 September (Sunday):El Morabba3 band concert, El Sawy Culturalwheel, El Zamalek, Cairo

3 September (Sunday): Hisham Kharma and Ghalia Benali concert, Citadel Festival for Music and Singing, Citadel Salah El Din, Cairo.

21-23 September (Thursday-Saturday) L’Etape Egypt by Tour de France, Sharm El Sheikh

26 September (Tuesday): Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (TBC).

28 September (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (TBC).

OCTOBER

6 October (Friday): Armed Forces Day.

13-20 October (Friday-Friday): El Gouna Film Festival (GFF).

28 October (Saturday): Djs Kygo, Tiësto, Kung and Frank Walker concert, Giza Pyramids.

NOVEMBER

11 November (Saturday): El Gouna Half Marathon 2023, El Gouna.

15-24 November (Wednesday-Friday): Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF).

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

2023: The inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum.

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THIS EVENING: Egypt is joining Brics next year

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India is leading this century’s space race + Ferrari’s market is growing younger

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What the markets are doing on 24 August, 2023

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Password-sharing crackdowns and the ethics of piracy in the twilight of streaming services

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