We’re heading into a busy IPO season: The EGX is “shaping up to be the Middle East’s hot spot for initial public offerings next year,” Tamim Elyan and Filipe Pacheco write for Bloomberg. At least six companies are planning to IPO in 2018, up from an average of three a year in the past three years, and none at all between 2011 and 2014. “Egypt is on the investment map and people are looking at it. Now there is a chance to do an IPO,” BPE Partners Chairman Hazem Barakat, whose company is planning a 1Q2018 issuance, says. Other IPOs expected during the year include state-owned Banque du Caire and Enppi as well as Misr Italia Group. Beltone’s IPO of Ibnsina Pharma, which announced in September its intention to float, should also be on the list.
“Egypt’s market cap remains fairly underrepresented compared to the economy and liquidity is still low, although improving, which limits international participation in the market,” Salah Shamma, Franklin Templeton Investments’ head of MENA equities, cautions. There could be regional competition as well, EFG Hermes Strategist Simon Kitchen suggests, saying: “Egypt is one of the busier markets in the region, but low oil prices and ongoing economic restructuring means that we are likely to see IPOs of state-controlled assets in the GCC as well.” Kitchen expects appetite for broader emerging market IPOs to remain robust in 2018 and for Egypt to have a “bigger piece of the pie.”
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M&A WATCH- Retailer HyperOne has reportedly received two separate bids from investors looking to acquire a controlling stake, sources tell Al Mal. The sources say one of the bids is from the Egyptian American Enterprise Fund and the other is from “a foreign investment company” entering Egypt for the first time. Al Mal says HyperOne hired Pharos Holding as a sell-side advisor and Al Tamimi & Co as legal counsel. There is no announced timeline for the transaction.
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13 Egyptian startups were listed in Forbes Middle East’s Top 100 Startups of the Arab World 2017, with clinic and physician booking platform Vezeeta leading the pack at fifth place. Instabug, an app that reports bugs on more than 12,000 apps and was a graduate of Flat6Labs and Y Combinator, came in at 40. The third highest-ranked Egyptian startup on the list was e-payments firm Edfa3ly which came in at number 43.
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Holding our collective heads in shame: Cairo is the world’s most dangerous megacity for women, according to a poll of expert carried out by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The survey “asked experts in women’s issues in 19 megacities how well women are protected from [redacted] violence, from harmful cultural practices, and if they have access to good healthcare, finance and education." Cairo fared worst globally, followed by Karachi in Pakistan, Kinshasa in Democratic Republic of the Congo, then the Indian capital New Delhi.” In contrast, London was named the best city, “buoyed by Britain’s free and universal National Health Service, as well as coming top for economic opportunities.” The poll is receiving wide coverage, including from Deutsche Welle and The National.
On a related note, thousands of Egyptian women are circulating the anti-harassment hashtag ‘MeToo,’ with stories of their own sour experiences to go with it. US actress Alyssa Milano was first to launch the campaign after Hollywood actresses leveled harassment charges against producer Harvey Weinstein, according to Egyptian Streets.
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Chinese state-owned oil companies PetroChina and Sinopec are offering to buyup to 5% of Saudi Aramco directly, Reuters reports in an exclusive. The companies have been corresponding with Aramco over the past weeks to express interest in a direct sale of a stake to a consortium made up of both companies, which will include China’s sovereign wealth fund, industry sources said. The move could give Saudi Arabia the flexibility to consider various options for its plan to float shares in Aramco. Reports had emerged earlier in the week that Saudi Arabia was considering delaying the international tranche of its IPO of Aramco until at least 2019.
In other international IPO news, Chinese video streaming platform Baidu has selected Bank of America, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs to manage its USD 1 bn IPO, according to Reuters.
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Iraqi forces occupied several positions in Kirkuk yesterday, including its provincial administration, in a military operation aimed at regaining control of the country following last month’s Kurdish referendum, Bloomberg reports. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had previously vowed to avoid such military actions. Egypt’s Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement yesterday urging both sides to “show restraint” and instead engage in dialogue. An escalation of tension in the area risks pushing oil prices up.
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Is Wall Street growing accustomed to global catastrophes? “Whether it’s the threat of nuclear war, hurricanes, or Russian meddling, it seems nothing can unnerve investors bent on pushing the US stock market higher and higher,” says Bloomberg. Although market-moving events have been in no short supply this year, they seem to have had an inexplicably minimal impact on Wall Street. Brexit has been central to “the shift in market psychology,” serving as an example for investors on how to wait and see, rather than act immediately. Yet, “is the risk priced into the market appropriate to what the real risk is?” It may not be, says one analyst. “People have grown more complacent and certainly more speculative, and it’s a little bit frightening.”
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