One labor framework, company-level rulebooks

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WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

US regulators have proposed cutting Banque Misr’s UAE branch from correspondent banking access

Good morning, friends. Egypt is on the global stage this morning.

Let’s start with the less-welcome news: The US Treasury Department has proposed cutting the UAE outpost of Banque Misr from correspondent banking access to US financial institutions, alleging that the bank’s Emirates-based subsidiary processed USD 1.8 bn for companies that US official claim are linked to Iranian shadow-banking networks. The proposal hasn’t been finalized and the bank has 30 days to comment, but it’s the opening shot of Washington’s Operation Economic Outcast, a threatened economic crackdown on Iran.

Next up: An opportunity: Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to arrive in Egypt in the coming days for his first state visit in a decade. In the cards: Fresh investment, with an emphasis on manufacturing and, reports suggest, sales to Egypt of Chinese AI tech that will be closely watched by Washington.

And for all employers out there: Private companies with 10 or more workers must now prepare internal workplace regulations under a new Labor Ministry framework that sets out due process for discipline, a cap on wage deductions, and protections for existing worker benefits. We spoke with the Labor Minister to get the full story, below.

SOUND SMART- The country’s first digital fund platform, Granite, has been admitted to the Financial Regulatory Authority’s (FRA) regulatory sandbox to test whether a money market fund’s ownership records can live on a blockchain rather than with a licensed administrator. We’ve unpacked what that means for fund administrators and the FRA — and have a rundown for everyone out there whose eyes roll into the back of their skulls when they read the word “blockchain.” This one is actually quite cool.

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Economic Outcast’s first target

US officials have proposed cutting Banque Misr’s UAE branches off from correspondent banking access to US financial institutions, with Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) alleging that the branch processed around USD 1.8 bn between January 2024 and June 2026 for 103 companies that it claims may be linked to Iranian shadow-banking networks. The move, which has not yet been finalized, would prevent US financial institutions from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts for Banque Misr’s UAE outpost and require them to guard against processing transactions involving the branch.

The proposed sanction is limited to Banque Misr’s UAE branch and its USD transactions with correspondent banks, according to a statement from the Central Bank of Egypt. The central bank and Foreign Ministry are in contact with the US authorities over the measures, which the CBE says do not extend to Banque Misr’s operations in Egypt, its other overseas branches, or any other bank operating in Egypt. FinCEN will accept public comments for 30 days after the proposal’s publication before any final rule is issued.

The UAE Central Bank weighed in, saying it will carry out an investigation of Banque Misr’s UAE branches, including a review of the period covered by US authorities’ allegations and of transactions involving the companies they named, according to a statement carried by state news agency WAM. The regulator said it is also assessing its options should FinCEN ultimately impose the proposed special measure, taking into account the bank’s obligations to its UAE customers.

IN CONTEXT- Banque Misr UAE is the first publicly announced financial-sector target of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s “economic D-Day” campaign against Tehran, Operation Economic Outcast — a global drive to sever Iran’s financial connections by targeting the banks, facilitators, and networks Washington says help the regime evade sanctions and generate revenue.

A decade later, Xi returns

Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Egypt this week for talks with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on the two countries’ strategic partnership, according to a statement from Ittihadiyat. It will be Xi’s first state visit to Egypt in 10 years, and is one leg of a 30 August-3 September tour that will also take him to Kyrgyzstan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Xi is set to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington later next month.

What to expect: New investment and manufacturing agreements could be on the table. Egyptian-Chinese Business Council Deputy Chairman Mostafa Ibrahim expects the visit to produce agreements and MoUs, and says Chinese investment could rise by USD 4 bn this year, taking cumulative investment to USD 14 bn. The China-Egypt TEDA zone has more prospective Chinese investors than it can accommodate, he tells us, while factories are increasingly expanding beyond the zone.

The wild card: Will Huawei ink a chip and data center agreement with Egypt while Xi is in town? The Chinese tech giant wants to build data centers in Egypt and stock them with two of its cutting-edge chips — one class that powers AI training clouds, and another used for inference, Bloomberg reports. The bid, which comes as Chinese open-source models present increasingly stiff challenges to US frontier models, has Washington paying attention: Officials there are reportedly looking to prepare a counter-offer for the Sisi administration to consider.

We’ve seen this playbook before: Washington strong-armed the UAE into walking away from Chinese AI tech as a condition for access to US AI gear and an upgrade in relations. The UAE got fast-lane access to AI chips and defense tech this summer after earlier turning its back on Chinese tech from providers including Huawei, we’ve previously reported.

Where we stand: Trade is growing, but the gap remains enormous. Bilateral trade reached USD 20.8 bn in 2025, with Egyptian exports to China at around USD 819 mn against USD 19.97 bn in imports. However, the tariff window is starting to generate orders. Egyptian exporters have signed 17 contracts worth USD 168 mn with Chinese buyers since China’s two-year tariff preference for eligible Egyptian goods took effect on 1 May.

The bigger question is whether those orders can begin narrowing the trade gap. Ibrahim says Egyptian commodity exports to China have risen to around USD 600 mn from USD 450 mn a year earlier and could reach USD 1.2 bn by year-end. He also expects growing trade, particularly agricultural exports, to support greater use of the CNY 30 bn local-currency swap line, which Egypt and China renewed for three years in June. China increasingly sees Egypt as a production base for conventional vehicles and EVs serving the domestic, African, and Arab markets, Egypt-China Chamber of Commerce Secretary-General Diaa Helmy tells us.

We’ll be watching for the investment agreements, manufacturing commitments, and export initiatives that emerge from Xi’s visit this week.

A trimmed megaproject

Renergy Group Partners’ Sinai hybrid renewables megaproject has been scaled back to a 2.5 GW pumped-storage hydropower plant costing an estimated USD 9 bn, Asharq reports, citing an unnamed government official. The new blueprint cuts 600 MW and USD 4 bn from the previous 3.1 GW, USD 13 bn configuration in El Tor by stripping out the solar generation and battery-storage components.

A quick reset? As recently as 16 August, the Electricity Ministry was still publicly describing the project as an integrated development combining solar generation with pumped-storage hydropower. The ministry said at the time that it was working through the available options and next steps for implementation, according to a statement.

What’s next: The consortium has two to three weeks to prepare an updated study laying out the implementation schedule, financial close, startup date, and final investment structure. The revised plan will then go to Electricity Minister Mahmoud Esmat before the parties seek the required government approvals, sign an MoU, and take the project to the cabinet. Construction is expected to take six to seven years.

REMEMBER- The El Tor vision used to be considerably bigger. When we first looked at the project last November, Renergy was pitching an integrated development built around 15 GW of solar capacity, 4.4 GW of pumped-storage hydropower, and green hydrogen production. The group then floated a USD 1 bn hyperscale data center in March that it said would form part of — and draw power from — the wider renewables complex. The latest redesign removes solar and battery storage, but the outlet’s report does not clarify what becomes of the green-hydrogen and data-center components.

New hotels in Marsa Alam

Pickalbatros Group is partnering with Emirati NG9 Holding to build three new hotels in Marsa Alam on the Red Sea coast, with combined investments of roughly USD 180 mn for 1.8k rooms, Asharq reports, citing Pickalbatros Chairman Kamel Abou Ali. While brand names have not been settled yet, the hotels will sit on land Pickalbatros already owns, Abou Ali said.

A broader partnership: The Marsa Alam hotels fall under a broader partnership the two groups announced earlier this month spanning hospitality, travel, tourism, tech and AI, and maritime and logistics services in Egypt. The two groups are also separately scouting land in the North Coast for future hotel projects, though Abou Ali didn’t disclose investment size or room capacity for those. NG9 already operates Gewan-branded hotels in Egypt.

ALSO- In Cairo, Abou Ali said Pickalbatros has received approval to develop a boutique hotel at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization under a usufruct arrangement, with construction to begin once it has secured all remaining permits.

The bigger picture: Pickalbatros has been expanding steadily for years. We reported on its last Red Sea hotel push back in 2022, when the group operated 26 hotels with 14k rooms in Egypt plus three properties in Morocco. The group now runs 29 hotels across Egypt, per its website. Separately, Abou Ali said Pickalbatros has earmarked USD 200 mn for hospitality expansion in 2026 — distinct from the USD 200 mn World Bank loan the group said it had secured for its Morocco expansion. That 2026 pipeline is already moving, with the developer buying the Oberoi Beach Resort and its 800k sqm Sahl Hasheesh land bank in May for EGP 3.8 bn from Export Development Bank of Egypt subsidiaries.

Data point

EGP 5.52 bn — that’s how much the Finance Ministry generated from stake sales in six listed state-owned companies between January and August, according to a government document seen by EnterpriseAM. Three companies accounted for around 86% of the proceeds: Abu Qir Fertilizers brought in EGP 1.63 bn, Mopco EGP 1.57 bn, and Alexandria Container and Cargo Handling EGP 1.55 bn. The remaining proceeds came from AMOC (EGP 338 mn), Telecom Egypt (EGP 294.8 mn), and Sidpec (EGP 135.3 mn). The document does not identify the stake sizes sold, buyers, or sale mechanisms.

Uneven progress: Cumulative divestment proceeds under the government’s program reached USD 5.99 bn by end-2025 (compared to USD 5.9 bn previously reported for the March 2022-July 2025 period), according to the document. The share of state holdings divested in companies in the offering program rose to almost 12% from 3.4%, with proceeds growing fastest between 2H 2022 and 2H 2023 before slowing from 1H 2024 through end-2025. This year, the state raised USD 526.3 mn from asset sales by July, including USD 420 mn from Gabal El Zeit and USD 106.3 mn from Finance Ministry-held stake sales.

What’s next: Egypt is targeting USD 1.5 bn in divestments before its IMF program ends in December. The next wave will focus on temporarily listed companies, a senior government official tells EnterpriseAM, with ministries and other state entities expected to sell down stakes to make room for 10–30% offerings to local or foreign private investors. The government expects the sales to bring private investors into management, while the document puts cumulative divestment proceeds targeted under the program at USD 12 bn.

PSA-

#1- WFH Sundays are sticking around through September: The government extended its remote-work system to every Sunday in September for employees at the facilities and entities covered by the scheme, according to a cabinet statement.

#2- And more time for delinquent state-land buyers: The cabinet has also approved a six-month additional grace period, starting 22 July, for individuals, companies, and associations that bought land under the Agricultural Development and Reconstruction Projects Authority’s jurisdiction but fell behind on installments, to regularize their status before their contracts can be terminated.

#3- WEATHER- It’s a little easier to bear in Cairo today, with temperatures easing to a high of 35°C and a low of 25°C.

It’s also cooler for our friends in Alexandria, where the high will reach 31°C and the low will dip to 23°C.

The big story abroad

The economic tightening on Iran appears to be taking hold, with sanctions and a naval blockade prompting Iranian imports and exports to fall between 25% and 35%, according to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei called for greater economic self-reliance and lower dependence on the greenback, championing what he termed a “Resistance Economy.”

Trump’s barrel bargain faces backlash: An agreement between Washington and Caracas to grant a US-led company 100-year concessions over 17 oilfields that contain more than a fifth of Venezuela’s reserves has been blasted by the country’s opposition figures and some government supporters. US President Donald Trump had said the agreement will give the US control of more than 65 bn barrels and lower domestic gas price, which has been on Washington’s agenda since removing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

From the US-China tech race, Chinese chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies sued the Pentagon for placing it on a blacklist that identified the company as a supporter of Beijing's military. The company — classified under the Biden administration — is China’s leading DRAM chipmaker, powering smartphones, PCs, servers, and AI systems, and saw its revenues surge 874% in 1H 2026.

Disaster in Nepal: Nepal is resuming its search and rescue for nearly 3k people missing after devastating floods killed at least 669. The disaster caused widespread infrastructure damage, with repair costs estimated at up to US 5 bn.

New labor law requires every private establishment with 10+ workers to prepare its own workplace regulations

Clearer workplace rules can increase investment and jobs by making labor relations fairer and more predictable for both employers and workers, Labor Minister Hassan Raddad tells EnterpriseAM. “Investment and job opportunities increase when there is a decent work environment,” he says. “A decent work environment means trained workers, occupational safety and health, and balanced and fair labor relations that benefit the employer and the worker at the same time.”

Every private-sector establishment with at least 10 workers must prepare internal workplace regulations under general rules the Labor Ministry launched yesterday. The regulations must comply with the ministry’s framework and the Labor Law, but they will not follow a one-size-fits-all template.

“Every company has its own circumstances. A company with 12 workers is different from another with 12k workers,” Raddad says. The system gives employers and workers room to shape rules around the realities of their workplace. The rollout sets out the company-level process that was still pending when we previewed the rules last week.

That process starts inside the company: Each establishment will consult workers and relevant experts before sending its draft regulations to the relevant union organization, which will have up to 15 days to provide its opinion. The competent labor directorate will then review and certify the regulations. A central committee chaired by Raddad and comprising specialist experts will settle disputes and conflicting interpretations, helping ensure consistent application across private-sector establishments.

What can’t change

Existing better benefits are protected: Organizations cannot use the new regulations to reduce better rights or benefits that workers already receive under previous regulations, employment contracts, or established workplace practice.

The rules also set out workplace-level safeguards: Employers cannot hold workers’ national IDs or passports or restrict their freedom of movement, while internal regulations must establish clear complaint mechanisms for harassment, bullying, violence, and discrimination — including in recruitment, training, wages, and promotions. Establishments must also protect the confidentiality of employee records. They can pay wages through commonly used electronic channels or accounts.

Disciplinary penalties will require due process: Employers must conduct a written, impartial investigation, hear the worker, and allow them to present a defense before imposing a penalty. Wage deductions are capped at the equivalent of five working days for any single violation, while all disciplinary deductions combined cannot exceed five days in one month.

Dismissal remains outside the employer’s direct control: Disciplinary dismissal for gross misconduct requires a ruling from the competent labor court and cannot be imposed by the employer alone. Money collected through disciplinary penalties must go into a separate account for employees’ social, cultural, and sporting services. These procedures implement parts of the wider Labor Law overhaul without reopening its already established rules on contracts, working hours, leave, flexible work, and the specialized labor-court system.

Awareness, then inspections

The ministry will initially prioritize dialogue and collective or individual negotiation, Labor Ministry spokesperson Abdel Wahab Khodr tells EnterpriseAM. Noncompliance can then trigger the penalties provided under the governing framework.

“There will be a very broad awareness push and extensive inspections to ensure implementation and require everyone — workers and employers — to fulfill their rights and obligations,” Khodr tells us. The campaign will include checks on wage compliance and employers’ attempts to reduce their social-ins. obligations. The ministry also plans to increase the number of labor inspectors and move more services onto Digital Egypt.

The ministry has already used targeted campaigns to enforce the Labor Law, with its first drive detecting 201 foreign-work-permit violations in the Red Sea governorate before it signaled that minimum-wage inspections would follow.

Ins. debt, easier entry

MEANWHILE- The National Organization for Social Ins. (NOSI) will let companies and factories settle overdue ins. debts with a down payment of just 5%, down from 15%, according to a statement. The change doesn’t appear to touch the underlying installment terms themselves — a framework NOSI has run since at least 2021, allowing repayment periods of up to seven years for debts exceeding EGP 1 mn and five years for smaller amounts — only the upfront cash businesses need to put down to enter it.

ALSO- The statement also pointed to service-window expansions meant to cut wait times for businesses and insured workers. Separately, NOSI raised the minimum and maximum insurable wage bands effective this January — to EGP 2.7k and EGP 16.7k respectively — as we reported, with companies facing financial strain able to apply to the National Wages Council for exemptions from the resulting wage increases.

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Granite is about to test whether Egypt’s funds still need administrators

Egypt’s first digital money management fund platform, Granite, is about to run an experiment that could redefine a key job in Egypt’s fund industry. The asset manager and its technology partner, Tarmiiz, have been admitted to the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA)’s regulatory sandbox, they said in a statement (pdf), where they will create a distributed ledger to maintain the ownership records for a live money market fund. The centralized system on which the fund runs today will continue to operate in parallel.

The FRA will get its own window through which to watch it all happen in real time — a “node,” in tech-speak — and if it likes what it sees, rules that today require a licensed fund administrator to hold that data will have to be rewritten. “So if blockchain is going to come into play, it will have to somehow replace the administrator.” Granite founder and CEO Hisham Akram tells us. “This is the first redundancy, the first casualty of using blockchain.”

WHY IT MATTERS- What Granite is doing is trying to help Egypt catch up to a technology that’s now being widely used in Western finance industries. Moving the ledger to the blockchain opens the door to what’s called tokenization (more on that in a moment) and, with it, lays the groundwork for a new universe of financial products in Egypt.

(If you, like us, are not blockchain nerds, read on: What Granite is testing is whether a fund’s book of record — the register of who owns how many units of a given fund, along with who bought or redeemed how many units when, and at what price — can live on a shared ledger rather than in a single administrator’s database. That ledger is the “blockchain” you hear so much about. What makes it different from the central database that Granite — and EFG Hermes, Beltone, and everyone else — maintains today is that three are multiple synchronized copies. Instead, copies exist simultaneously with everybody who needs access, including the fund manager, the FRA, the administrator, the custodian, you name it. Each gets their own copy instead using an API to go into the central copy maintained by Granite’s administrator or — in our more low-tech world — making the fund manager file Excel sheets or reports on a regular schedule.) “It is a very powerful thing, because you cannot tamper with data,” Akram tells us. “And once the transaction is made, you cannot unmake it — you have to reverse it.”

The experiment is unusually ‘concrete’ (for lack of a better word) for a sandbox project: Granite isn’t spinning up a simulation. Instead, it plans to keep operating its money market fund exactly as it does now while also writing every transaction to the ledger simultaneously — “two paths,” as Akram puts it — and reconciling the two daily. Nodes will sit with Granite, the FRA, as well as the fund’s custodian and its administrator.

Akram tells us he expects the technical proof to take “a couple of months” of clean daily reconciliation, after which the question will no longer be about software engineering, but actual implementation and/or regulatory change.

A successful trial will likely mean that today’s rulebook has to change. The rules now require a fund’s data to sit with a licensed administrator, who maintains the register and charges for the service. If the ledger becomes the record, that function won’t survive in the same form. Fund administrators also create daily net asset value reports and keep track of redemptions and subscriptions, among other things. All of it is stuff that could just as easily run on a blockchain.

Today’s fund administrators can see that as a threat — or as an opportunity. Moving the ownership register onto a distributed ledger wouldn’t eliminate every part of the administrator’s job: somebody would still have to calculate and verify NAV, reconcile cash and assets, handle exceptions, report to the regulator and remain legally accountable for the accuracy of the fund’s records. But it could automate or displace much of the registry and reconciliation work for which administrators are paid today — and things like calculating and verifying NAV are already done in software.

If the trial works, the result could also be a new technology role: Someone has to operate and secure the network, manage its participants and cryptographic keys, maintain the smart contracts and decide what happens when a transaction is disputed or a record needs to be corrected. That doesn’t have to be the same outfit that is legally designated as the fund administrator. The FRA could require an existing licensed administrator to retain responsibility while allowing a specialist technology provider to operate the infrastructure underneath it.

The open question is less whether Egypt’s administrators can learn to “run a blockchain” than whether they can adapt their businesses around one. They could become the regulated operators and overseers of the new system, or surrender the technology layer to specialists and retain a narrower control and reporting role. Tarmiiz, founded by financial-infrastructure veteran Amr Soliman, appears to be positioning itself as one of those specialists.

What’s in it for the FRA? More control — and in real time, to boot. Each fund manager has to report to the FRA weekly on all of its clients’ transactions. On a shared ledger, the FRA sees everything as it happens through an API. “It gives the regulator a live view for KYC and anti-money-laundering purposes, including the ability to block a barred or politically exposed person before a transaction, rather than after, as well as a live view of all fund transactions that happen instantly,” Akram says.

This isn’t entirely new magic: BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have tokenized money market products that have attracted bns of USD worth of AUM. Sure, those are finished products, and what Granite is building right now is plumbing — but it’s a step in the right direction. “Big asset managers are moving their record-keeping onto block chain distributed ledgers on nodes, storing client data and transactions, even if they’re not going to do the tokenization,” Akram notes.

Uhm, Enterprise? What’s tokenization? Tokenization turns a unit of ownership — a share of a fund, a slice of a building, or a gram of gold — into a digital record on a shared ledger, divisible into pieces as small as you like. Because the record is the ownership, it can pass straight from one holder to another instead of being sold back to the issuer and reissued.

It doesn’t stop at funds: Akram sees the blockchain creating a wide set of opportunities for the fund management industry as the technology forces change across government and quasi-governmental agencies, from MCSD (the depository and clearance house), the national real estate registry (shahr el akary), and the notary public system, among others. “Tokenization and the blockchain could be a game-changer for the REIT industry, in particular,” Akram points out.

Property funds are where the friction is worst: “The bid-offer spread is wide, and it takes time to settle this thing. This is going to be instant. So it’s going to be much more useful in real estate funds, when you’re tokenizing an apartment that is, you know, EGP 2 mn.” That said, the money market pilot is the smaller half of the prize: “Our fund is EGP 1, so it’s fractionalized already,” he says.

What does the finished version look like? Once units are tokenized — in a money market fund or in a real estate investment trust — they can move directly between holders without a redemption round-trip. Squint the right way, and that turns a fund unit from a place you park money into something closer to a means of payment. As Akram sees it: “Two people who both hold tokenized fund units could settle between them on a Friday night, outside banking hours, by transferring ownership of the units themselves.” Extend the idea, he says, “and you get a card, or a wallet, linked to a money market fund — just imagine having the money market fund on Apple Pay.”

And that’s just on the retail side — there are even more applications for corporates. For example, a corporate treasurer could put some of her working capital in a fund and encode a standing rule that liquidates exactly enough on the 25th of each month to cover payroll, without anyone placing a redemption order.

What happens next: Think of the sandbox not as the launch of a product, but the start of a conversation between Granite and the FRA. They’ll inevitably run into the limits of the existing rulebook — and debate throughout the process about what the rulebook should really say. The whole point is for Granite and the FRA to get on the same page about the regulatory change that be necessary to bring blockchain into production for the wider industry — a process likely to run a lot longer than the two months of clean reconciliation that Akram thinks gets it started.

WHAT TO WATCH- A fund unit that both earns a return and that can also settle a payment is — for all intents and purposes — interest-bearing money. The FRA regulates non-bank financial services, but the Central Bank of Egypt is in charge of money and payments, setting hard limits on issuing or trading digital assets without its say-so. Whichever way the technical trial goes, a tokenized medium of exchange would draw the interest of the CBE — a regulator that’s conservative by nature and that hasn’t publicly said anything about it, let alone created the tokenized EGP you’d need to settle against.

Digitize insiders sold 5.46 mn shares through eight months of falling prices

Nine insider sale filings since late December have taken five Digitize shareholders below the 5% mark that brings them inside the exchange’s dealing-disclosure regime, and cut the chairman’s related group from 30.33% to 26.46%, according to Article 29 disclosures reviewed by EnterpriseAM. The nine filings cover roughly 5.46 mn shares for EGP 16.26 mn by our math. The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) sanctioned the company in November and publicly warned (pdf) investors to approach it with caution over eleven findings from a field and desk examination.

IN CONTEXT- Late last year, the FRA refused to clear the disclosure report Digitize needed to call an EGM on raising issued capital to EGP 210 mn from EGP 108 mn and authorized capital to EGP 1 bn from EGP 500 mn. The refusal came after inspectors visited the Sheikh Zayed address the company had on the exchange’s screens and found no office there. The regulator noted the investor relations manager position had changed hands seven times since the start of 2023, with four changes occurring in the last year. The FRA stripped the stock of margin trading and both same-session and next-day settlement from 4 December and told the exchange to consider moving the shares to the non-active market. The refusal stands until the company remedies the findings.

No sale printed higher than the one before it. Ahmed Mohamed Abdel Kader went out at an average EGP 4.53 in December, Kamal Nagib Helal at EGP 3.56 in February, and Chairman Yousry Atlam at EGP 3.10 in early March. Atlam sold twice more at EGP 2.80, and Ahmed Fouad Fahmy at the same price in mid-March. Zakaria Badran took EGP 2.67 in May, and El Metwakel Ala Allah Gomaa EGP 2.63 in July and EGP 2.60 on 24 August. That’s a 42.6% slide in insider exit prices in eight months, all of it off the average-price field on the filings.

Atlam accounted for the largest single block. He sold around 473k shares on 3 March and 350k on 19 April, and reported a 1.2 mn-share sale on 17 March that took him from 12.76% to 11.45% — a drop that works out closer to 1.42 mn shares against the company’s 108 mn issued, by our math. His holding now stands at 11.13% against 13.20% in early March. His fellow board members were selling alongside him: the related-party column on the April filing puts Ahmed Atlam at 7.10% against 7.61% in March, and Seham Osman at 4.2% falling to 3.92% against 4.54%. Both sit on the board as non-executives.

Disclosure failures

Abdel Kader’s December sale didn’t reach the bourse until February. In a letter to the EGX (pdf) dated 11 February, Al Ahly Pharos Securities Brokerage said it had no knowledge of its client’s related-group position, and that the client had understood the Article 29 obligation to bite only once his own stake and the group’s together crossed the prescribed limits. The trade had been executed on 21 December, seven weeks earlier.

That’s a disclosure failure by a major shareholder in a company already sanctioned for disclosure failures. The listing committee has fined Digitize four times since early July, EGP 110k in six weeks, once for failing to hold its general meeting and twice for financial statements it still hasn’t filed, and the overdue list has grown at each session.

ALSO- Three reporting periods are now outstanding. Digitize hasn’t filed audited FY 2025 statements, 1Q 2026, or 2Q 2026, the last of which was due in mid-August under the 45-day rule. The most recent numbers on the screens cover the nine months to 30 September 2025, showing consolidated net profit of EGP 16.71 mn and equity of EGP 163.9 mn, and they only landed on 25 December, three weeks after the FRA published its findings. Everyone who bought into the widening float this year did so on figures that are now eleven months old.

Retail took the other side

The float widened while the board sold. Free-float shares rose to 61.77% from 56.98% over the second quarter and the shareholder register grew to 4.15k holders from 3.8k, according to the company’s Article 30 report for the period (pdf).

ICYMI- Digitize came to the main market in May 2024, one of five companies to make the transition at that point. Atlam said at the time the move would open access to a wider market to fund the company’s expansion.

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Your next customer journey may start in a chat window

In the latest episode of Access Tomorrow, Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for North Africa, Levant and Pakistan, sits down with Fares Akkad, Meta’s managing director for the Middle East and Africa (MEA), to unpack what AI and messaging platforms are doing to small businesses, creators, and customer service across the region.

What’s on the agenda?

AI in the hands of a small business: What happens when a small business suddenly has access to coding, design, and customer-support capabilities that once needed full teams;
WhatsApp as the new shopfront: How everyday chat habits are becoming sales, CRM, and support channels;
Creators as businesses: Why a young, video-first MEA audience is turning content into commerce.

Listen to the full episode of Access Tomorrow, presented by Visa, here.

(** Tap or click the headline above to read this story with all of the links to our background as well as external sources.)

Beltone swings to EGP 47.8 mn 2Q loss as costs outpace revenue growth

Beltone Holding swung to a net loss after tax and minority interest of EGP 47.8 mn in 2Q 2026, from net income of EGP 601.6 mn a year earlier, as operating expenses grew faster than revenue at the financial-services group, according to its latest earnings release (pdf). Operating revenue more than doubled to EGP 7.36 bn in the quarter, up 112% y-o-y. But operating expenses rose 157% to EGP 6.36 bn, leaving net operating income flat at EGP 1.00 bn and compressing the net operating-profit margin to 14% from 29%.

The weak second quarter pulled down first-half earnings. Net income after tax and minority interest fell 50% y-o-y to EGP 646.8 mn in 1H 2026, even as consolidated operating revenue jumped 125% to EGP 14.18 bn. Net operating income rose just 16% to EGP 2.07 bn, with the operating margin narrowing to 15% from 28%.

The drivers: The company said the squeeze reflected the cost of scaling up its platform following the consolidation of Baobab. G&A expenses rose 287% y-o-y to EGP 7.3 bn, which the company attributed to incorporating Baobab’s operations, adding its branch network across several African markets, and higher employee and operating-infrastructure costs. The larger lending book also required more provisions: Expected credit-loss charges rose to EGP 237 mn in 1H 2026 from EGP 35 mn a year earlier, while impairment charges on financial assets climbed to EGP 478 mn from EGP 86 mn. Beltone also recorded EGP 395 mn in foreign-exchange losses during 2Q.

(** Tap or click the headline above to read this story with all of the links to our background as well as external sources.)

Talk shows zero in on the STEM graduation crisis

On the airwaves last night: The university admissions crisis for STEM graduates remains unresolved despite parliamentary demands. The issue arose when officials canceled the students' geographic distribution exemption — reversing a decision issued last month — which now prevents top-tier graduates from attending major universities outside their home regions.

Parental backlash: In a phone interview with El Sora’s Lamees El Hadidi, Fatima Sayed, a parent, described the decision as a "geographic distribution guillotine" because it allocates only one or two seats for STEM graduates per faculty across the country. Sayed expressed her astonishment that some students were forced to choose programs unrelated to their specialization at these schools, such as nursing, due to the admissions system. "My son created an invention to generate electricity from gravity, and whenever I talk to him about it, he says, 'Where would I take this? I'm not even guaranteed a spot in engineering,'" Sayed said. (watch, runtime: 7:28)

What now? El Hadidi also addressed the Higher Education Minister. “We are working on education reform... What comes next? Especially when there are 1.9k students [from these schools' graduates] that [the government] spent money on, invested effort in, handpicked carefully, and who worked hard and got the highest grades. In the end, will they be discarded just because of geographical boundaries?! A response is needed from the Higher Education Ministry, because rules must be flexible for the good of the country."

Parliamentary backlash: It is worth noting that a number of MPs called on the government to review the decision, and urged reconsidering the approach taken toward graduates of these schools as they transition to university education.

(** Tap or click the headline above to read this story with all of the links to our background as well as external sources.)

FRA approves Matra as Egypt’s third credit-rating agency

The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) approved the establishment of Matra as Egypt’s third ratings agency to rate and rank securities, according to an FRA statement. The approval adds another player to Egypt’s ratings market just weeks after the regulator licensed the country’s second ratings agency, ending Meris’ long-standing run as the sole provider.

MEANWHILE- ALF became the fourth company to join the FRA’s debt-collection registry, with the regulator still reviewing applications from more than 30 other firms. The registration is another sign that the market is gradually moving toward compliance after a legal challenge by collection firms slowed the rollout of the new registry.

Why it matters: NBFIs have until 22 January 2027 to bring their collection arrangements into line with the FRA’s rules, after which they will no longer be able to outsource collections to unregistered firms. With just four companies on the registry and more than 30 applications still pending, the compliance push still has plenty of ground to cover.

Regional wins for Petrojet

Petrojet won a USD 22.7 mn contract to connect Jordan’s Muwaqqar industrial development area to the national gas network, according to a Petroleum Ministry statement. The 18-month project covers a 22km pipeline tying Muwaqqar into the Arab Gas Pipeline, plus pressure-reduction and metering stations, with Petrojet executing the work through a consortium with local contractor Ahmad Yousef Al-Tarawneh for Jordan’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

IN CONTEXT- Petrojet’s regional project pipeline includes a USD 1.1 bn oilfield development in Algeria, a USD 160 mn Saudi infrastructure contract, and Enppi’s USD 1.24 bn LNG preconditioning project for Adnoc in the UAE, where Petrojet is a subcontractor. The two companies also secured a six-year framework that makes them eligible to compete for EPC work in Petroleum Development Oman’s USD 6 bn+ project pipeline. As we reported in June, Egypt’s outward FDI jumped 30.3% y-o-y to USD 508 mn in 2024, with state engineering giants like Petrojet and Enppi among the flagship names pushing that expansion.

More on our radar:

The National Investment Bank has signed agreements to settle EGP 98.1 bn in historical debts with the National Media Authority and the New Urban Communities Authority, taking its signed debt settlements between March and June to EGP 294.1 bn. (Statement)
Asec Company for Mining’ (Ascom) shareholders voted to keep the miner operating despite accumulated losses exceeding half of its equity, even after it returned to profitability with EGP 308.3 mn in FY 2025. (EGX filing, pdf)
The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) scrapped a requirement for ins. and reins. brokers to open two branches within three years and barred ins. consultants from executive roles at brokerage firms, easing expansion rules while tightening conflict-of-interest safeguards. (Statement)

(** Tap or click the headline above to read this story with all of the links to our background as well as external sources.)

MENA VC funds sit on USD 1.5 bn as deployment lags

MENA-focused venture funds are sitting on an estimated USD 1.45 bn in dry powder — capital committed but not yet deployed — according to a Magnitt report seen by EnterpriseAM. That’s 88% of the USD 1.64 bn raised across 17 funds since 2024, or put another way, nearly nine of every ten USD committed to the funds raised since 2024 is still on the sidelines.

The pile reflects how early these funds are. Venture funds typically deploy over five to seven years, and 10 of the 17 identified funds have committed less than 10% of their target, leaving more than 90% available. Of the USD 1.64 bn committed, only USD 197 mn had been deployed by 1H 2026.

What has gone out has concentrated in the established markets. Saudi Arabia drew the largest share across all three launch years, ahead of the UAE and Egypt. Of the USD 60 mn that 2026-launched funds deployed in 1H, USD 33 mn went to Saudi startups and USD 7 mn to the UAE, with USD 20 mn spread across other MENA markets.

The largest funds skew toward the UAE. BECO Capital’s Booster Growth Fund I leads at USD 250 mn in target size over the 2024-1H 2026 period, followed by Shorooq Partners’ Late Stage Growth Fund at USD 200 mn and Oman’s Jasoor Fund at USD 180 mn. Four of the 17 funds carry an explicit AI mandate.

The pool has grown fast. Six active funds in 2024 held a combined USD 572 mn, only USD 42 mn of it deployed. By 2025, the cumulative count reached 14 funds targeting USD 1.28 bn, 89% still undeployed. Three more funds in 1H 2026 added USD 370 mn, all of it dry powder, taking the combined target above USD 1.6 bn.

Don’t read the 2026 funds as war-proof, though. Magnitt cautions that the three funds added this year, despite the US-Iran war and the Houthi threats, likely reflect fundraising processes started before the conflict. On its assumed six-to-nine-month transmission lag, Magnitt sees the war’s real effect on new fund formation surfacing in 2H 2026 and early 2027.

Why it matters: A USD 1.45 bn pool sounds like a cushion, but dry powder only counts once it’s deployed. Whether it meets the region’s funding needs depends on pace, mandates, risk appetite, and how well the capital matches founders’ stage and geography, and on whether the war chokes off the next wave of fundraising before this one is spent.

(** Tap or click the headline above to read this story with all of the links to our background as well as external sources.)

EGX30	55,107	-0.3% (YTD: +31.7%)
USD (CBE)	Buy 50.15	Sell 50.29
USD (CIB)	Buy 50.12	Sell 50.22
Interest rates (CBE)	19.00% deposit	20.00% lending
Tadawul	11,238	-0.2% (YTD: +7.1%)
ADX	10,045	+0.1% (YTD: +0.5%)
DFM	5,883	+0.3% (YTD: -3.0%)
S&P 500	7,712	-0.3% (YTD: +12.7%)
FTSE 100	10,824	+0.3% (YTD: +9.0%)
Euro Stoxx 50	6,486	+1.0% (YTD: +11.9%)
Brent crude	USD 88.10	-0.5%
Natural gas (Nymex)	USD 2.89	-0.9%
Gold	USD 4,530	-2.9%
BTC	USD 78,136	+1.0% (YTD: -10.8%)
S&P Egypt Sovereign Bond Index	1,108	+0.1% (YTD: +11.6%)
S&P MENA Bond & Sukuk	151.34	-0.1% (YTD: -0.4%)
VIX (Volatility Index)	14.43	-0.6% (YTD: -3.5%)

THE CLOSING BELL-

The EGX30 fell 0.3% at Wednesday’s close on turnover of EGP 11.4 bn (3.5% above the 90-day average). Local investors were the sole net buyers. The index is up 31.7% YTD.

In the green: Heliopolis Housing (+4.2%), Egypt Aluminum (+3.5%), and Orascom Construction (+2.9%).

In the red: Misr Cement (-2.7%), Arabian Cement (-1.8%), and Oriental Weavers (-1.6%).

CALENDAR

31 August (Monday): Deadline to apply online for the Industrial Development Authority’s 540 lease-to-own industrial plots via the Egypt Industrial Hub.

SEPTEMBER

8-10 September (Tuesday-Thursday) El Alamein International Airshow, El Alamein International Airport.

10-12 September (Thursday-Saturday): Egyptian Entrepreneurship Sector Diagnostics Report Summit, El Gouna.

15 September (Tuesday): IMF to hold its eighth review of Egypt’s USD 8 bn EFF arrangement.

24 September (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s sixth meeting of 2026.

27-29 September (Sunday-Tuesday): Global Conference on Population, Health, and Human Development.

28-29 September (Monday-Tuesday): Egypt Mining Forum, St. Regis Hotel New Capital.

30 September - October 3 (Wednesday-Saturday): Cityscape, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

OCTOBER

5 October (Monday): The EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum.

6 October (Tuesday): Armed Forces Day.

10-11 October (Saturday-Sunday): Egypt Women’s Health Summit (EWHS), Cairo Marriott Hotel.

26-28 October (Monday-Wednesday): IEX Egypt, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

29 October (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s seventh meeting of 2026.

NOVEMBER

6-8 November (Friday-Sunday) : Global Entrepreneurship Festival, JW Marriott Hotel, New Cairo.

8-11 November (Sunday-Wednesday): Cairo ICT Forum.

DECEMBER

7-10 December (Monday-Thursday): Food Africa, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

17 December (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s eighth meeting of 2026.

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

2H 2026: Operations at Deli Glass Co’s new USD 70 mn glassware factory kick off.

2026: The Egyptian-American Economic Forum.

4Q 2026: Banque du Caire IPO.

2027

20 January-7 February: Egypt to host the African Games.

1-3 February (Monday-Wednesday): Agri Expo, Cairo International Convention Center.

April 2027: Tenth of Ramadan dry port and logistics hub to begin operations.

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

2027: Egypt to host EBRD’s annual meetings.

2027: Egypt-EU Summit 2027.

End of 2027: Trial operations at the Dabaa nuclear power plant expected to take place.

September 2028: First unit of the Dabaa nuclear power plant begins operations.

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