The leagues return

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WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TONIGHT

THIS EVENING: Inflation hit a new record in July + Economic updates from FinMin + EFG Holding had a good 2Q

Good afternoon, and a very happy THURSDAY, ladies and gentlemen. It’s shaping up to be a macro-heavy end to the workweek, with new inflation and budget data out today. Before we get underway, we have a couple of mea culpas from this morning’s edition of EnterpriseAM, which we’ve amended on the web:

CORRECTION #1- Our My Morning Routine column with Fadi Abi Nader included an incorrect title. Fadi is Vice President - One Demand Global Emerging Markets at Mars Wrigley.

CORRECTION #2- We incorrectly said that Mohamed Kotb, who has been tapped as Prime Investments’ new CEO and managing director, is taking over from Hassan Samir Farid. Hassan remains vice chairman and CEO of Prime Holding.

THE BIG STORIES TODAY

#1- New record for inflation: Annual urban inflation accelerated again in July, hitting a new record of 36.5% y-o-y during the month, up from 35.7% in June, according to figures from statistics agency Capmas. July’s inflation figures are a new record high, as food and beverage prices continued to underpin the price acceleration during the month, rising 68.4% y-o-y.

#2- FinMin releases updated economic data: Egypt’s budget deficit came in at 6.0% in FY 2022-23, narrowing one percentage point from the previous fiscal year, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said in a statement today. Preliminary figures had suggested the budget deficit widened to 6.2% last fiscal year. Our primary surplus also improved, coming in at 1.63%, up from 1.3% a year earlier, Maait said.

#3- EFG Holding’s net income after tax and minority interest grew 20% y-o-y in 2Q 2023, recording EGP 405 mn , according to its earnings release (pdf). The group’s revenues rose 51% y-o-y to EGP 3.1 bn, buoyed by “broad-based growth” across its investment banking arm, EFG Hermes; commercial bank aiBank; and its NBFIs platform EFG Finance.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

Biden’s executive order to curb investments and trade with China’s tech sector is leading the conversation in the international business press this afternoon. Made yesterday, the order focuses on advanced semiconductors which may be used with technologies aimed at military, surveillance and cyber activities. The order goes to the extent that US investors must inform Washington about any investments into other kinds of semiconductors and AI technologies and prohibits US nationals and permanent residents from participating in clandestine agreements. China’s rebuttal includes a sharp response to this move that impacts the “security of the global industrial and supply chains” and naturally affects any investment in China. (Financial Times | Reuters | CNBC | Bloomberg | Wall Street Journal)

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

Ocior Energy moves ahead with green hydrogen plans: India’s Ocior Energy has inked preliminary contracts with the government to set up a USD 4 bn green hydrogen plant in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone).
Draft decisions on building IDs, land tax, public asset sales + African finance: In its weekly meeting yesterday, the cabinet approved draft legislation to give properties unique digital IDs, as well as to help public enterprises more efficiently cut their losses by selling unprofitable assets.
Talents Arena closes a pre-seed funding round: The AI-powered recruitment platform Talents Arena has secured USD 750k in pre-seed funding from UI Investment alongside several unnamed Saudi and regional angel investors.

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.

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, or fill out this form and we’ll be in touch.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST-

MISSED THE ENTERPRISE EXPORTS AND FDI FORUM? The EnterprisePodcast has you covered : The Enterprise Podcast’s forum series has been bringing you audio recordings of what was said on stage at the Enterprise Exports and FDI Forum,which took place in May. Throughout, we learned lessons from some of Egypt’s biggest exporters on how Egypt can export its way out of a crisis. We heard everything from how to build an exports and FDI strategy, to identifying a foreign partner and tapping into a global supply chain.

WANT TO LISTEN? Head to: Apple Podcast | Spotify | Google Podcast | Anghami.

IT’S THE FINAL EPISODE- Our final panel of the day was, naturally, the most forward looking. Our panelists discussed how the companies — be they in age-old industries or emerging ones — have adapted to changes to better position their businesses for an uncertain future. We were joined by Nadia El Tawil, investment officer at pan-African private equity firm AfricInvest, Mostafa Bedair , CEO of Giza Seeds and Herbs, and Abdallah Sallam, CEO of Madinet Masr.

OUR FORUM SERIES CONTINUES NEXT SUNDAY WITH THE ENTERPRISE CLIMATE FORUM- Fresh off the heels of a successful COP27, we held our first forum to dive deep into the fundamentals of what we think is the world’s most important industry. The conversations ranged from exploring the business opportunities for Egyptian entrepreneurs, companies and startups in climate, to demystifying green hydrogen, and how we finance our green transition. And we did it all in the Grand Egyptian Museum.

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- The temperature will hit 39°C during the day and drop to 24°C in the evening, according to our favorite weather app.

China stocks up on Nvidia chips ahead of stricter US export restrictions + Catch on the latest Gen Z work trend

Chinese tech giants are rushing to buy Nvidia chips for building generative artificial intelligence systems in fear of new US export restrictions , the Financial Times reports. Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba have all placed orders for A800 processors from the US chipmaker, worth USD 5 bn to be delivered this year and next, sources familiar with the matter told the salmon-colored paper. The restrictions imposed last year were a bid to choke Beijing’s technological ambitions, but the Biden administration is considering even stricter controls, which could lead to a wider GPU shortage.

The latest in Gen Z career vocabulary (hold your eye roll): “Lazy-girl jobs.” Young employees are increasingly looking for job prospects that are ideal for work-life balance and sidestep typical downsides of fast-paced corporate jobs, the Wall Street Journal says. These jobs — termed “lazy-girl jobs” by (again, hold your eye roll) a 26-year-old influencer — “ aren’t roles where you can slack off, she says, but career paths where ‘your work-life balance should feel so awesome that you almost feel like you’re being lazy,’” the Journal writes.

Not unambitious, just not particularly ambitious: Lazy girl jobs are essentially ones that can be done remotely and without running the risk of overwork, pay salaries between USD 60k and USD 80k annually — hardly a coveted salary for a career-focused 30- or 40-year-old, but enough to cover expenses for most young adults — and generally allow for enough flexibility to take breaks, pursue hobbies, and set their own hours. These jobs don’t only include social media-centric careers such as influencers, the Journal notes, pointing to one assistant project manager at a real estate company working on regulatory and financial compliance, who says her job has the same characteristics as “lazy-girl jobs.”

The name is gendered, but the trend is not: Although the term is attached to women employees, this follows a wider trend on social media platforms, especially TikTok and Instagram, where terms such as “girlboss” have emerged, but are applicable to both genders. An anonymous forum on Reddit, for example, is filled with men expressing their frustration with their current careers, such as being afraid to take time off and having overly critical bosses, and their hopes to find more flexible employment — essentially saying they’re looking for lazy-girl jobs under a different name, the WSJ notes.

Evil Genius: A true crime documentary on “America’s most diabolical bank heist”

? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
(all times CLT)

Discover one of the most elaborate heists in history: Evil Genius is a Netflix documentary that follows the investigations of a 2003 heist that baffled the FBI. Picture this: A pizza delivery man from Mamma Mia’s pizzeria in Erie, Pennsylvania robs a bank, leaving with around USD 8k in his pocket and dies later that day. The cause? A bomb strapped to his neck. This documentary uncovers how the pizza delivery man, who may or may not have been a hostage, was set out by an unknown benefactor to rob a series of banks and with a limited amount of time to find the keys that would unlock his collar-bomb before it went off. Leaving detailed instructions for both the bank owners, the unsuspecting pizza delivery man, and the police, the FBI find themselves dealing with a psychotic genius who views this as no more than just a game.

Almeria v Rayo Vallecano (LaLiga — Friday 8:30pm)
Sevilla v Valencia (LaLiga — Friday 11pm)
Nice v LOSC (Ligue 1 — 10pm)
Real Sociedad v Girona (LaLiga — Saturday 6pm)
La Palmas v Mallorca (LaLiga — Saturday 8pm)
Athletic Club v Real Madrid (LaLiga — Saturday 10:30pm)
Marseille v Reims (Ligue 1 — Saturday 6pm)
Paris Saint Germain v Lorient (Ligue 1 — Saturday 10pm)

The Bundesliga kicks off next week but the super cup match between Bayern and Leipzig will be on this Saturday at 9:45pm.

T he Saudi League returns for its most highly anticipated season on Friday with a match between Al Ahli Saudi v Al Hazm starting from 9pm.

The Arab Club Champions Cup is in the Kingdom’s hands. Saudi Arabia will be taking home the trophy as two of its teams, Al Hilal and Al Nassr, have reached the final match, which will take place on Saturday at 9pm. Al Hilal have taken home the title twice, once in 1994 and again in 1995, whereas the title has continued to evade Al Nassr.

Women’ World Cup quarter-finals will take place this Friday and Saturday:

Spain v Holland (Friday 4am)
Japan v Sweden (Friday 10:30am)
Australia v France (Saturday 10am)
England v Columbia (Saturday 1:30pm)

Akher Zafir is back again: The Jordanian rock band is back in Egypt to hold a performance on Saturday, 19 Augustin Bibliotheca Alexandrina as a part of the summer carnival. You can reserve your tickets through their website. They will also be performing in Cairo at ElSawy Culturewheel in Zamalek on Monday, 21 August at 8pm, with tickets available for purchase from the venue’s website.

Russ is coming to New Alamein. American pop star Russ will be performing as part of the New Alamein Festival on Friday, 25 August. Tickets are available on Tazkarti.

Get ready for a fancy event with exquisite music at the Omar Khairat concert at Royal Maxim Palace Kempinski on Tuesday, 22 August. The concert will start at 6:30pm until 10:30pm. Get your tickets on TicketsMall.

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.

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe ( SGU ) is a delight for science nerds — and the rest of us laypeople. From augmented reality(AR) to lab-grown meat and to much much meatier topics. The show, which came online in 2005, broadcasts weekly episodes where a panel of hosts discuss a plethora of topics — without forgetting to also poke fun at pseudoscience and outlandish conspiracy theories. Episode 937 discusses the recent Titan submersible implosion:The approximately 2-hour descent to watch the Titanic debris, which turned to tragedy when the submarine imploded, and took the lives of five people, in an event that the hosts dubbed “unsurvivable.” The tragedy also cost mns in greenback in rescue missions alone on account of the recklessness of OceanGate, a company that has since been accused of cutting massive safety corners. You will find the show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, and Podbay among other platforms.

After a swirl of honeyed summer novellas, we’re ready for something darker , and Riley Sager’s The Only One Left scratches that itch. It all started with a bloody murder in 1929 that left an entire wealthy family brutally murdered in their beach mansion, except for one sole survivor: Lenora Hope. Much to the authorities’ frustration, however, a lack of evidence meant no conviction, leaving Lenora to live alone in her family home for decades. Flash forward to 1983, Lenora who is now in her 70s is confined to a wheelchair and is unable to speak. She is cared for by Kit McDeere who reluctantly takes the job to escape her own dark circumstances. Much to her surprise, she discovers that Lenora, with the help of a typewriter, confesses she is finally ready to tell the real story of what happened in her youth. What ensues is a gripping tale of loss and decay that the author weaves skillfully as he dots it with gothic elements that are both dark and captivating.

What the markets are doing on 10 August, 2023

The EGX30 fell 0.3% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 1.73 bn (13% below the 90-day average). Foreign investors were net sellers. The index is up 21.3% YTD.

In the green: Mopco (+1.6%), CIRA Education (+0.6%) and Elsewedy Electric (+0.5%).

In the red: Credit Agricole (-2.3%), Alexandria Container and Cargo Handling (-2.2%) and Telecom Egypt (-2.0%).

Check on your middle managers

A company’s biggest asset is its people — most of all its middle managers: Many companies see their middle managers — leaders who fall in the middle of the organizational hierarchy, with direct reports below them and senior leadership above them — trapped in a “beleaguered” role that doesn’t match what middle managers should actually be doing, according to a recent McKinsey Global Survey. Middle managers are “vital” to a company’s success, and those with strong connections with their reports can drive positive growth for an organization, including improving operations and performance, and successfully implementing organizational vision. However, the role of middle managers is often misconstrued and incorrectly applied in organizations, which results in “untapped value,” say McKinsey partners Emily Field and Bryan Hancock, and senior partner Bill Schaninger, who developed the survey.

Why is the middle of the corporate hierarchy so important? “Managers are key in two parts of what makes businesses work: one, they’re critical for delivering for their people, for coaching them, for developing them, for making sure that those people have the soft skills that are increasingly required in a world where we’re surrounded by automation and automated tools,” Hancock says. Managers are also the ones who drive creativity and value creation, as well as collaborative efforts within their organizations and with external parties, he notes.

What are the typical issues and hurdles middle managers grapple with? Middle managers reported several issues holding them back from tapping their potential, including the way their time is allocated, the existence of top-down and bottom-up pressures, a mismatch between individual and organizational understandings of value, and not receiving the types of motivation and incentives that resonate most, according to the McKinsey survey.

The biggest pain point: Spending too much time on non-managerial tasks: Middle managers typically spend too much time doing lower-value or “individual-contributor” tasks, including administrative work, than they do on more crucial functions of a manager, such as talent and people management, McKinsey says. “Nearly half of their time is devoted to nonmanagerial work—specifically, respondents say they are spending nearly one full day out of every week on administrative work, and more of their time is taken up by tasks we refer to as individual-contributor work than any other area,” according to McKinsey.

Beware the player-coach trap: A major issue that’s been cropping up with middle managers is that they are simply not well-suited — or adequately trained — to manage and train people, according to the McKinsey partners. “Over the past 20 years, managers have increasingly been asked — and increasingly valued — not for their management but for their individual-contributor work. And given the complexities of the future of work, we need to flip that around. We need to get managers back to managing,” Hancock says.

This dynamic is a result of employees typically being promoted to managerial positions as a natural reward for high-quality individual work , although this does not always translate into a successful manager. These types of managers often fall short when it comes to training their direct reports, and instead invest an inordinate portion of their time and effort doing the work they should be coaching others to do, Schaninger says.

It’s no wonder there’s so much burnout: Managers (at all levels of the hierarchy) are reporting higher levels of burnout and stress in recent years, with the trend appearing to worsen in 2020 and 2021, according to Gallup. Stress and burnout for managers are exacerbated by increasing pressure to provide employees with tailored feedback and coaching, although many managers have limited capacity to meet these demands, according to Harvard Business Review. Middle managers are also navigating the delicate balance between maximizing productivity and preventing burnout among their teams. Burnout has become increasingly prevalent as weaker global economic conditions have resulted in widespread layoffs and hiring freezes, leaving managers “with a seemingly impossible job: Motivating their teams while managing them during turbulent times,” Fortune says.

There’s AI for that: A handful of AI tools are cropping up to assist managers in providing coaching, as managers “generally want to coach their employees because they know it’s beneficial” but don’t necessarily have capacity to dedicate to providing detailed, personalized feedback, HBR notes. One company, Gong, has developed an AI platform to provide sales teams with real-time insights and advice for navigating conversations with potential clients, and creates a database of “high-quality examples of recorded sales conversations to serve as a resource for independent learning.”

THE ENTERPRISE ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR

AUGUST

10 August (Thursday):Omar Khairat concert, the New Alamein Festival 2023, New Alamein.

10 August (Thursday): Carole Samaha and Bahaa Sultan concert, New Alamein Festival 2023, New Alamein.

10 August (Thursday): Jadal concert, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria.

11 August (Friday): Amr Diab Summer Concert, Golf Porto Marina, North Coast.

12 August (Saturday): Massar Egbari concert, El Sawy Culturewheel, Sheikh Zayed, Cairo.

13 -19 August(Sunday-Saturday): El SawyCulturewheelbook fair, ElSawy Culturewheel, Zamalek, Cairo.

21 August (Monday): Akher Zafeer concert, El Sawy Culturewheel, El Zamalek, Cairo.

22 August (Tuesday): Omar Khairat Live Concert, Royal Maxim Palace Kempinski, Cairo.

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

SEPTEMBER

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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