IPO WATCH- Banque du Caire will IPO in 3Q2018, CBE Governor Tarek Amer said in a statement to the press at the Business for Africa and the World Summit on Thursday, Al Borsa reports. Amer did not provide further details on the planned IPO, which was initially expected to take place this fall, but was delayed as a result of the central bank’s shakeup of management at state-owned banks. Government officials had said at the time that the bank’s new leadership would be key to promoting the original offer. The EGX had approved in February BdC’s request to list 562.5 mn shares at par value of EGP 4 per share. Industry types had later said the government is considering selling up to 49% of Banque du Caire as part of the IPO process, including 5% which would trade a global depositary receipts on the London Stock Exchange. EFG Hermes and HSBC are managing the issuance, while Baker McKenzie has been tapped as legal advisor.

Separately, Amer said that the sale of United Bank still needs more time as the bank’s restructuring process is still in progress.

M&A WATCH- Our friends Pharos Holding and Banque Misr Investment Banking (BMIB) announced on Thursday the closing of the sale of a 97.7% stake in National Company for Maize Products (NCMP) to Cairo Three A through a mandatory tender offer. “I am delighted to witness the final closure of the NCMP transaction which underscores Pharos Investment Banking’s growing presence in the M&A and capital market transactions arena as well as our successful cooperation with Banque Misr, our partner in the process,” Pharos Holding Managing Director and Head of Investment Banking Sherif Abel Aal said in a statement. Pharos and BMIB were the sell-side advisors for Misr Capital Investments and the National Bank of Egypt, the majority shareholders of NCMP.

M&A WATCH- Al Ahly Capital acquired 100% of the International Company for Livestock from its corporate parent, the National Bank of Egypt, in a EGP 1 bn transaction, Al Ahly Capital CEO Khaled Badawi tells Al Masry Al Youm. The holding company plans on using the livestock company’s 600-feddan farm in Abu Rawash to establish an industrial project with initial investments of EGP 3 bn over the next three to four years. No further details were provided on the nature of the project.

MOVES- CIB announced the appointments of Amani Abu-Zeid and our friend Magda Habib as non-executive directors of its Board of Directors, according to a bourse statement. The board will advise the bank’s general assembly of the changes at its next meeting.

Egypt signed a wave of funding agreements totaling almost USD 1.9 bn over the weekend.

First up, the World Bank and Egypt signed for disbursement of the USD 1.15 bn third and final tranche of a USD 3.15 bn facility to support economic reforms, the bank said in a statement on Friday. USD 150 mn in the tranche came from the UK government.

Next, the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) signed a USD 500 mn loan agreement with the Export Development Bank of Egypt, the bank said in a statement on Friday. The agreement, signed during the sidelines of the Business for Africa, Egypt and the World Summit in Sharm El Sheikh, will be used to fund Egyptian trade with Africa. The loan will also provide assistance to Egyptian export promotion councils and business associations. Afreximbank also signed an MoU with Morocco’s Attijariwafa Bank to cooperate on funding trade between Egypt and the continent, Youm7 reports. No price tag was noted on the agreement.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) agreed to loan EUR 250 mn to Banque Misr at the summit on Saturday, Al Borsa reports. The loan is but the first tranche of a EUR 500 mn facility, said Banque Misr Vice President Akef El Maghraby. Banque Misr also signed a USD 40 mn agreement with the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa to fund trade with the continent, added El Maghraby.

Speaking of the EIB, the bank is planning to form a subsidiary focused on non-EU projects, Reuters reports. The new offshoot will initially focus on countries fuelling the EU migration crisis and would provide loans of up to EUR 7-9 bn a year. The move was meant to streamline lending outside the EU.

Is OTMT looking to make another play at Oi? Naguib Sawiris reportedly said he is again interested in embattled Brazilian telecom Oi — if Brazil’s government “takes the right steps,” according to Bloomberg. Sawiris’ second change of heart came after the court presiding over Oi’s bankruptcy said the operator’s CEO has the power to negotiate a restructuring plan with creditors and present it to court without approval from the shareholder-controlled board. Sawiris had said back in October that he had lost interest in the company after a creditor vote on a restructuring plan to help it exit bankruptcy protection was delayed four times. OTMT had offered in December an exchange of debt for shares and a capital injection of as much as USD 1.25 bn in Oi, which filed last year for Brazil’s biggest ever bankruptcy protection to restructure USD 20 bn of debt. The Orascom bondholder group had committed to underwriting the entire capital injection if no other investors stepped forward.

Sawiris may now have to contend with serious competition, though, as Chinese telecom giant China Telecom Corp also will reportedly also present a firm offer after following the conclusion of the debt restructuring.

Speaking at the Business for Africa 2017 Summit, Sawiris also made a number of other announcements, including:

• Expect a fresh investment from OTMT in 2018 as the company has USD 250 mn to deploy and may borrow a similar amount.
• OTMT is considering starting a residential- and second-home development business in Egypt.
• The company is also planning two agri-business projects in Cote D’Ivoire in 2018 worth about USD 30 mn each. It is also looking at similar projects in Mali, Burkina Faso, Sudan and South Sudan
• OTMT is studying mining projects in Niger and Mauritania.

Investors in Beltone shares acquitted of market manipulation: An economic court acquitted last week all 12 investors accused of manipulating Beltone Financial’s share price, Al Borsa reports. No Belton executive had been implicated in the case, which dates back to February 2016, when investors allegedly bid for large blocks of Beltone shares before canceling minutes later, prompting Beltone’s share price to surge. The EGX repeatedly reversed trades in Beltone’s shares, pushing Beltone to sue the heads of the EGX and EFSA for “deliberately harming” the firm. According to a report from experts enlisted by the court, the investors were found innocent of manipulating Beltone’s shares. The surge in the firm’s share price was attributed to the February 2016 announcement that Orascom Telecom Media Technology (OTMT) asked Beltone Financial, its subsidiary, to complete its acquisition of CI Capital as part of OTMT’s strategy to combine Beltone and CI Capital to create a regional financial conglomerate. The report also blamed the EGX’s reversal of trades for driving investors to speculate and purchase large chunks of the firm’s shares.

Breaking down trade barriers, backing loans for SMEs, encouraging boldness in bureaucrats and more at the Africa 2017 conference: A who’s who of Egyptian business gathered this weekend in Sharm El Sheikh for the 2017 edition of Egypt’s flagship conference on doing business with Africa. Plenty of news followed:

CBE Governor Tarek Amer announced that the central bank will start handing out assurances [the word we want to use starts with ‘guarant’ and ends in ‘ees’ but the spam filters hate it] to banks for SME loans by the end of December, Al Borsa reports. The CBE will back loans to SMEs in Upper Egypt to the tune of 70% of the value of the loan and will cover 60% of the loan value in the rest of Egypt. Amer added that EGP 45 bn in loans have been provided to SMEs so far under the CBE’s EGP 200 bn initiative.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi announced that the government is working on new legislation intended to shield civil servants from punishment if an investment agreement does not work out. The move is designed to encourage government officials to take bold steps and initiatives without fear of political backlash which could lead to their firing, he said, according to Al Mal. Longtime readers of Enterprise would recall that timid and change-averse bureaucrats were one of the many complaints brought up by investors at the Egypt Economic Development Conference in Sharm El Sheikh back in 2015. The issue has been a persistent theme since the bureaucrats and former ministers were prosecuted and subjected to third-party lawsuits after the events of January 2011.

But the overarching theme of the conference was removing trade barriers in the continent — something we really need to work on considering our poor showing in that category of the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2018. The theme was touched upon quite eloquently by our friend CIB Chairman Hisham Ezz Al-Arab, who called for Africa’s trading blocs to do more to cut trade barriers. Ezz Al-Arab said the move would do much to spur investment in the continent and drive industrial development, which the continent sorely needs, Al Masry Al Youm reports. Africa needs USD 90 bn for infrastructure development, healthcare and education, making it a choice location for investment, Ezz Al-Arab said. CBE Governor Tarek Amer also touched on the same point when he appeared to support a move towards acommon currency for the continent.He did acknowledge that such a move remains a dream, but should be a goal that African nations should aspire to, according to Al Shorouk.

In the less-distant horizon, it appears Egypt will continue to push to form an African Trade Zone through the merger of COMESA, EAC and SADC trade blocs. The issue is expected to come up at an African Union summit next month, sources said,according to AMAY. The ultimate goal would be to see tariffs between nations of the zone reduced 90% over a five-year period. Furthermore, the government and four other nations have agreed in principle to establish an overland route connecting Egypt and Chad, said Alaa Ezz, the secretary general of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, said in statements to state news agency MENA. The government is in talks with the EU to fund the feasibility study for the project and will issue a tender for the study soon, he added, according to Al Borsa.

Other highlights from the conference includes the Higher Education Ministry signing an MoU with emerging markets private equity giant Actis to establish a university in Egypt, Al Mal reports. It is unclear if the investment by Actis is part of its major pan-African higher education initiative, Honoris United Universities, but the company did say at the signing that the partnership would be similar to that of its South Africa Regents Business School, which is funded through Honoris.

The EGPC has signed oil and gas exploration agreements with three international companies worth a combined USD 50 mn, an Oil Ministry official tells Al Borsa. These include a USD 20 mn oil and gas exploration agreement with our friends at Apex International in the West Badr El Din concession in the Western Desert, a USD 10 mn gas exploration agreement with Trident Petroleum for exploration in the Magawish block of the East Esh El Mallaha concession, and a USD 20 mn oil and gas exploration agreement with Apache-Khalda in the Alam El Shawish concession in the Western Desert.

Meanwhile, it looks like Noble Energy is trying to make a play for the potential gas pipeline linking Cyprus’ offshore gas fields to Egypt’s processing facilities,Al Masry Al Youm reports. The group’s senior Vice President of the Eastern Mediterranean area Keith Elliott met with Oil Minister Tarek El Molla to discuss this and other potential energy projects on Saturday.

The coming Egyptian citrus season “should be great,” Ahmed Abdelhady, from citrus exporter Citrozone, tells Freshplaza. “The volumes for Navel oranges are higher than last year. Last year we had a shortage, which had to do with weather related issues. We also have similar volumes for Valencia oranges,” he says. The EGP devaluation has helped the industry and is supporting a strong season, producer Hussein Marei says. “Profits have been amazing for the past few months, and growers have been reminded of the potential of citrus. Growers need able to demand higher prices because the prices of fertilizers, cartons and energy have gone up because of devaluation of our currency. But this has proven to be okay, because the Egyptian people can afford the local products.”

Will Sudan lift its ban on imports of Egyptian products by January 2018? Sudanese Investment Minister Mubarak Al Fadel tells Al Borsa that Egypt and Sudan have held several meetings to resolve the issue — and that Khartoum will likely lift the bans by the beginning of next year. According to Al Fadel, Sudanese Trade Minister Hatem El Ser Aly arrived in Cairo several days ago for talks with Egypt’s Tarek Kabil to discuss the imports crisis and ways to improve cooperation. Al Fadel also said that the coming period will see increased economic trade and cooperation between the two “brotherly” countries, pointing to businessman Naguib Sawiris’ plans to establish a major touristic project in Sudan.

However, Deputy Agriculture Minister Safwat El Haddad denied the news, telling Al Mal that there are “no new developments” on the issue. Khartoum had imposed a succession of bans on Egyptian imports in September 2016 and March of this year, followed by a blanket ban in May. The bans came as relations between Egypt and Sudan continued to deteriorate and tensions flared. Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir had accused Egypt of arming rebels — an accusation President Abdel Fattah El Sisi denied — and another “crisis” arose between the two countries over territorial claims over the Halayeb and Shalatin triangle.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Ministry is still pressing Saudi Arabia to look into lifting its ban on imports of Egyptian strawberries and peppers, El Haddad tells Al Mal. The ministry requested that the Kingdom send a technical team to inspect the farms and packaging stations, according to El Haddad, who says he expects that Riyadh will lift the ban following the inspections, which could wrap by the end of the month. Agriculture Ministry spokesperson Hamid Abdel Dayem had claimed in October that Saudi Arabia had lifted its ban on imports of Egyptian strawberries, but it was unclear at the time whether the move was temporary or permanent. The strawberry ban, which KSA imposed in July over concerns of high levels of residual pesticide, came months after a separate ban on all kinds of peppers for the same reason in December 2016.

The backlash against US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv continued to dominate the regional conversation over the weekend. In a nutshell: Reactions have been somber but relatively muted, barring diplomatic condemnations andPalestinian deaths as a result of protests and exchange of fire with Israeli forces in a “day of rage.”

Hamas called for a new “intifada,” while the Palestinian Authority says there will be "no talking" with the US until Trump reverses the decision. Egypt was spared the protests seen in other parts of the region, with the Interior Ministry banning a planned protest by parties of the Democratic Coalition and arresting suspected ikhwanis for trying to incite them.

On the diplomatic front, Egypt and 13 other member states condemned Trump’s decision at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday. Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and Italy called on the US to put forward detailed proposals for peace between Israel and the Palestinians after the “unhelpful” decision.

At an emergency Arab League meeting in Cairo yesterday, Egypt also denounced “unilateral decisions that violate international law and threaten to upend the global political order.” Arab League Chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit “called on world nations to recognize the State of Palestine with east Jerusalem as its capital in response.” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir called on the US to backtrack on its decision.

…Egypt’s religious leaders said they will refuse to meet US Vice President Mike Pence when he arrives in Egypt on 20 December, state news agency MENA said on Saturday.The Coptic Church and Al Azhar Sheikh rejected Pence’s request for a meeting. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has also said he will refuse to meet Pence.

Not content with upsetting allies over Jerusalem, Trump issued a statement calling on Saudi Arabia to immediately end its blockade of Yemen. On Friday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on Saudi Arabia’s leaders to “think through the consequences” of their actions and be “a little bit more thoughtful,” Bloomberg reports.

Also from across the pond, we hear that Deputy national security adviser Dina Powell is leaving her position in the White House. Powell, of Egyptian-American heritage, has been a leading figure on the Trump administration's Middle East policy. She is leaving after fulfilling her full-year commitment, the Washington Post says.