Peak money

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INTRO

Welcome to the third issue of Money Matters

Hello, ladies and gents, and welcome to the third issue of our signature series, Money Matters.

For many professionals, their 40s and 50s are when the conversation shifts from building wealth to managing it. How do you invest in property that you do not plan to live in? Can you keep pace with the rise of AI and use it to make better investment decisions? Should alternative assets such as art have a place in your portfolio? And how do you begin turning years of savings into an income stream that can support you in retirement?

In this issue of Money Matters, we look at some of the questions that become increasingly important during your peak earning years, from building and preserving wealth to generating income from it in the years ahead.

A house vs. a home

The best property to live in isn’t necessarily the best property to invest in. While owner-occupiers tend to prioritize lifestyle, convenience, and long-term stability, investors need to think about appreciation, liquidity, financing costs, and future demand. Real estate professionals say confusing the two objectives can lead buyers to make decisions that serve neither purpose particularly well.

Start by defining why you’re buying. “The house you live in and the house you buy as an investment are two completely different decisions,” Bonyan CEO Tarek Abdelrahman tells EnterpriseAM. “If you're buying to live in it, that’s largely a personal choice. If you’re investing, there are completely different considerations.”

Buying a home

A primary residence is first and foremost about meeting a need. Buyers typically focus on factors such as proximity to work, family, and the type of community they want to live in. Financial returns matter, but they are often secondary to convenience and quality of life.

Homebuyers are not usually making a pure investment decision. “You'll choose what's suitable for you, the location that works for your job, and the alternatives that best fit your needs,” says economic expert Walid Gaballah.

The property you live in is often one you expect to keep for years. “The house you live in, you're usually not planning to sell,” Abdelrahman says. “You're going to finish it the way you want and live in it.” Decisions about whether to buy an apartment, townhouse, twin house, or villa are therefore often driven more by lifestyle preferences than by investment considerations.

Buying an investment property

Investment properties should be evaluated through a different lens. Once the objective shifts from housing to wealth creation, investors need to focus on factors that influence future returns. Location, future demand, financing costs, and exit opportunities become more important than whether the buyer personally likes the property.

“If you’re investing, the most important thing becomes capital appreciation,” Abdelrahman says. He points to East Cairo as an area that has historically delivered stronger appreciation than some other parts of the market, arguing that investors should focus on where future demand is likely to be strongest.

Emerging areas may offer more upside than mature neighborhoods. Gaballah argues that investors buying for future appreciation should focus on growth corridors rather than established districts. “When you buy in Mohandessin or Zamalek, prices have already reached their ceiling,” he says. “You're trying to buy outside.” For long-term investors, future urban expansion can matter more than current popularity.

The liquidity question

Liquidity can be just as important as appreciation. According to Abdelrahman, one of the biggest mistakes investors make is overlooking how easily a property can be sold. “The first major risk in real estate is liquidity,” he says. “You can own an apartment and then find that you can't sell it when you need to.”

Property type can influence liquidity. Abdelrahman argues that apartments often make better investments than villas because they appeal to a larger pool of buyers. “Even if you have enough money for a villa, it may make more sense to buy two apartments,” he says, noting that smaller-ticket assets are generally easier to sell and can offer greater flexibility if an investor needs cash.

Not every investor sees liquidity as the primary consideration. Gaballah argues that most people entering the property market already understand that real estate is fundamentally a long-term asset class. “People who prioritize liquidity usually go to gold,” he says. “Don't think of buying property as an investment suitable for the short term.”

An alternative to direct ownership

Direct ownership is no longer the only way to invest in real estate. Abdelrahman argues that listed real estate investment companies and real estate funds offer an alternative for investors seeking exposure to the asset class without buying a physical property. These structures can provide access to professionally managed real estate portfolios while potentially offering greater liquidity than direct ownership.

Professional management can help address information gaps. According to Abdelrahman, individual investors often struggle to evaluate every project available in the market. “The average person doesn’t have the ability to study everything that’s available and identify the best opportunity,” he says. Specialized investment teams, by contrast, focus on identifying assets, managing properties, maximizing rental income, and improving returns.

These vehicles can also provide access to assets beyond the reach of most retail investors. Abdelrahman notes that investment firms can own office buildings, administrative complexes, retail centers, and other income-generating commercial assets that would typically require EGP tens or hundreds of mns to acquire directly. By pooling capital, investors can gain exposure to a broader range of properties than they could purchase on their own.

Before signing the contract

Before buying, investors should consider the time horizon for the property they’re looking to buy: “Do you need it for yourself, do you need it in ten years, or are you buying it for your children?” Gaballah asks. The answer can significantly affect both location and financing choices.

Financing deserves as much attention as the property itself. Gaballah argues that buyers should carefully compare developer installment plans, mortgage finance, and bank lending options. Depending on their profession and income profile, some buyers may qualify for bank loans that are cheaper than long-term payment plans offered by developers.

The framework is straightforward. If the goal is homeownership, focus on affordability, stability, and personal needs. If the goal is investment, focus on appreciation potential, liquidity, financing costs, and future demand. The same property can excel at one objective while performing poorly at the other.

The best investment decision I ever made: Karim Badr and Hanan Abdel Meguid

In each issue of Money Matters we ask senior members of our community for investment advice based on personal experience. Speaking to us this week are Karim Badr, CEO Private Equity, CI Capital and Hanan Abdel Meguid, CEO of Kamelizer Spaces.

Karim Badr, CEO Private Equity, CI Capital

The best investment decision I ever made was buying a 3-bedroom chalet in Almaza, on the North Coast. I bought the chalet for EGP 1 mn in 2014 and paid EGP 20k in monthly installments over the course of five years. I spent EGP 4 mn on finishing and furnishing it because I decided to go all out. Today, the value of the property is EGP 45 mn.

There is nothing like real estate investments in Egypt, and Sahel real estate is on steroids. There’s limited supply and high demand. I also bought an apartment in Katameya Creeks in New Cairo in 2021 for EGP 10 mn, which I thought was super expensive. It is now valued at EGP 60 mn. The trick is to choose a good location with a good developer.

But today the real estate market is different. You can’t make the same kinds of returns, so I wouldn’t advise going all in on real estate. You need to have a diversified portfolio that includes real estate split between Cairo and Sahel. I think you should make short-term investments, cash is king, and don’t get tied to anything. Short term investments in stocks, bonds, and commodities are the way to go.

Hanan Abdel Meguid, CEO, Kamelizer

The best investment decision I ever made was moving ahead with Kamelizer Spaces at District 5 despite my initial concerns on cost. The co-working space was nothing like I’d ever ventured into before. It was larger and more ambitious and I initially felt like I was getting in over my head. The cost of rent was quadruple that of comparable locations. No one knew where the dollar would land post devaluation so everyone was pricing at the high end of the range.

In 2023 after two devaluations I was confronted with the decision of whether or not to continue with the space. From an investment standpoint, if I was only looking at my excel sheet, it wouldn’t have made sense. The rational decision should have probably been to cancel or hit pause until things stabilize but I decided to ignore all that and continue. I liquidated some of the passive income assets that I had in order to stay the course and that was the best investment decision I ever made.

With Kamelizer, I discovered a great location and new category of experiential real estate that I’m now heavily focused on. The multi modular events space and the shape shifter capabilities of the shared areas is all very flexible. You can change the functionality of the layout which initially required more investment to get the space ready. Once things were up and running and people started using the space I discovered that there were many different revenue streams that could come out of the space that I hadn’t initially thought of. You should follow your gut. I found my life with this investment.

Finance in the 21st Century: where access, security, and highest returns meet

Digital finance has changed what users expect from financial processes. Branch visits, queues, signed forms, morning-long appointments, and approvals waiting on a stamp have steadily been pushed out of the user experience. For clients, the gain is clear: an account can now be opened, funded, and put to work without a physical step. The harder question is whether those removed steps have been replaced by something better: faster access, smarter tracking, clearer records, and processes that are easier to complete without weakening security.

GRANITE brings that shift into short-term liquidity management through a digital Money Market Account experience. Clients can onboard fully digitally, link a bank account, complete identity verification, add funds, and activate their Money Market Account without a branch visit or signed form. Transfers in and out are processed digitally on the same business day until 2 PM. The result is digital convenience with visible accessibility and security.

The digital layer rests on identifiable oversight. GRANITE uses institutional-grade cybersecurity, end-to-end encryption, and robust access controls to protect user data and digital transactions. Client assets are held separately in the fund’s name by Banque du Caire, the independent custodian. The fund is subject to an external audit by Dr. Khaled Abdelaziz Hegazy and to ongoing FRA regulation, while the fund manager runs the portfolio within the approved mandate. That separation makes the user experience simpler while keeping protection built into the model.

For businesses, the operational case is immediate. Treasury teams often spend too much time matching balances and explaining variances. Automatic reconciliation reduces the admin load, while corporate users receive tax-free returns through GRANITE’s money market account and retain access to liquidity when needed.

The return engine is straightforward. The fund invests in Egyptian T-bills, a short-term government instrument, giving users access to competitive daily returns through a low-risk structure. There are no lock-ups, withdrawal penalties, or minimum or maximum balance requirements, so liquidity remains accessible while balances continue to update daily.

A digital account should make money easier to access without making trust harder to verify. GRANITE is built around that idea: friction is reduced, accessibility remains, and daily returns continue within a regulated structure designed to keep the user experience simple and secure.

Collectible capital

Suez Canal Bank (SCB) and Art D'Égypte recently signed a strategic partnership to treat art as an investable economic asset, with plans to integrate a new art advisory platform into SCB’s wealth-management arm. The bank’s Privé clients can have access to curated acquisition opportunities, retail financing to buy art, and portfolios shaped by Art D'Égypte's curators. To launch the new partnership, Anthea Peers, President of Christie’s Europe and Middle East, made her first visit to Egypt last week to discuss the growing importance of art in the investment landscape.

“The aggregate art market across all global auction houses goes up and down across a precise 5-year cycle and is valued at around USD 68 bn,” Peers told an audience of Cairo collectors and investors at the launch event for SCB’s art advisory and art investment program. “We are currently at the start of a global up cycle,” which she attributes to the fact that “there are a lot of people, making a lot of money.” According to Peers, nearly half of the art market is in the US, with art going from 1% of a HNW collector’s portfolio to nearly 10%.

The wealth management industry has spent more than a decade absorbing art into its offering. Deloitte’s 2025 Art & Finance Report, which tracks the integration of art into wealth management, finds that globally 51% of wealth managers now provide art-related services — up from just a quarter in 2011 — and that 65% report clients actively seeking help with art, compared to 44% a year earlier. Behind the shift is an estimated USD 992 bn in art and collectibles that’s expected to change hands over the next decade. Deloitte calls it institutionalization with financing, art-secured lending, advisory desks, and fractional ownership turning a private passion into a managed asset.

The financial rationale rests on diversification. Because art has a low correlation to both bonds and equities, advocates of owning art as an investment make the argument that art can hold its value when financial markets are uncertain. Advisors typically recommend a small satellite position — conservatively around 5%, concentrated in blue-chip names with genuine markets.

Where does Egypt and the region fit into all this?

The local art scene has been gaining momentum over the last 4-5 years. Christie’s reports that sales of modern Middle Eastern art rose 298% from 2020-2024. Gulf capital is flooding into museums and fairs; and contemporary Egyptian names — like Wael Shawky, who represented Egypt at the 2024 Venice Biennale and served as the artistic director of the 2026 Art Basel Qatar, and Ghada Amer, whose work hangs at the Guggenheim and the Centre Pompidou — are becoming more prominent.

“The UAE is probably the fastest-growing network of collectors, investors, and family offices in the world right now,” Adam Baldwin, founder and CEO of Baldwin Contemporary and Baldwin Fine Art Acquisitions told EnterpriseAM UAE last December. Baldwin, who started his business in London and has a secondary presence in Miami, has decided to make Dubai his third location.

Thinking of investing in art?

Proceed with caution. Investment advisor Sagui Hamed, the founder of Square Capital Group presents a contrarian view. “There’s a trend now among the posh elite in Egypt to invest in art, watches and other expensive collectibles. To justify their spending patterns, they classify the purchases as part of an investment portfolio; they are not.”

A portfolio is built by rank: “Least risky and most liquid first, then bonds, real estate, and blue-chip equities — art should sit at the very bottom, bought only once everything else is exhausted and only as a fraction of net worth.”

Hamed’s explanation for the global surge in art investment is the rise of the b’naire class. “The tech boom has created a class of cash-rich buyers with little to buy, and that excess liquidity is chasing scarce trophies — art, watches, luxury real estate. If you don’t have that kind of net worth, art is much too risky. Having said that, if you want to buy a piece of art because you like it and want to hang it on your wall, that’s fine. It may appreciate, it may not. In either case, I think the art market in Egypt is not mature enough for us to talk about art as an asset class.”

Egypt’s own market-builders are candid about the market gaps. Lina Mowafy, co-founder and gallery director of TAM, admits that art can be a relatively illiquid asset and slow to sell. “But that doesn’t mean that a secondary market doesn’t exist. The secondary market runs through galleries that hold each artist's collector list,” she says. But she also names what is missing: no centralised resale infrastructure, opaque pricing, and untrained operators marking work up arbitrarily with no accreditation regime to check them.

The bottom line

Buying art is still more of a personal consumption decision than an investment choice. But initiatives like the SCB–Art D'Égypte partnership are, on balance, a net positive: They bring advisory rigour, financing and a trust signal to a market that has thus far lacked all three. Mowafy’s advice for would-be art collectors is simple: Art is a very nice journey of discovery. Trust your instincts, buy what you like through people whose reputations you can verify, and choose work you would be glad to own even if it never appreciates.

Smart money

What once required a portfolio manager or a team of analysts can increasingly be done with the help of artificial intelligence. But AI is not transforming retail investing in a single way. Some platforms use AI and deep learning to manage portfolios, others use conversational AI to guide investment decisions, while large language models are helping investors digest financial information faster. Understanding the differences between these approaches may be just as important as understanding the technology itself.

AI as a portfolio manager

Amwal AI was founded in 2023 with the goal of giving retail investors access to the same quality of research and portfolio construction tools available to institutional investors and wealthy clients, Founder Mohamed Ameen tells us. The platform allows users to invest in diversified portfolios that provide exposure to US-listed equities and other asset classes, while dynamically adjusting allocations based on changing market and economic conditions. “Most investors in our region are left choosing between low-yield bank products, static robo-advisor portfolios, or passive ETFs that simply rise and fall with the broader market,” he adds.

The company’s core argument is that many investment products rely on fixed asset allocations that do not adapt to changing economic conditions. Instead, Amwal AI combines traditional portfolio optimization techniques with AI-powered economic analysis. The platform continuously processes economic data from major economies around the world and compares current conditions with roughly 70 years of historical data to identify periods that resemble today's environment. “We’re not trying to predict anything, we’re trying to understand what the economy looks like today,” Ameen says.

AI, machine learning, and deep learning models are embedded throughout the investment process. Some models analyze economic data and historical market behavior, while others compare current conditions with similar periods in history to generate signals across more than 40 asset classes, including equities, fixed income, commodities, gold, oil, and cryptocurrency.

The company also uses AI within its risk management framework. Models trained on decades of options market data continuously monitor changes in options pricing curves and investor positioning every five minutes to assess whether market risk is increasing or decreasing. The goal is to identify shifts in risk appetite early and adjust portfolios before those risks fully materialize in broader markets.

While AI generates the portfolio allocation recommendations, the company still maintains a human review process before changes are implemented. However, Ameen says portfolio managers do not override the system or select investments based on personal views. “No person sits down and decides which assets we should invest in or not invest in,” he says. Human oversight is primarily used to ensure that model outputs remain reasonable and do not contain anomalies.

AI as a financial advisor

Some platforms use AI as a digital financial advisor rather than an investment engine. Thndr's recently developed Alpha is one example. The platform helps users build investment plans based on their goals and risk tolerance, explains the reasoning behind its recommendations, prepares buy and sell orders, and suggests portfolio adjustments when allocations drift away from their target weights.

Rather than making portfolio allocation decisions itself, Alpha acts as a conversational financial advisor. In effect, it seeks to replicate some of the functions traditionally provided by a financial advisor, but in a scalable digital format.

AI as a research assistant

Large language models such as Claude or ChatGPT represent a third category of AI applications used in investing. Rather than managing money or constructing portfolios, they can act as research assistants. Investors can use them to summarize annual reports, analyze earnings call transcripts, compare companies, explain financial concepts, identify risks, or highlight growth drivers hidden inside lengthy documents. Tasks that previously required hours of reading can often be completed in minutes.

Ameen argues, however, that research assistance should not be confused with portfolio management. While LLMs can help investors understand information more efficiently, he believes they are less suitable for building investment strategies because their outputs are non-deterministic, making them difficult to backtest and verify. “If you take the exact same input and give it to the model again five minutes later, you could get a different output,” he says.

Successful investing requires more than access to publicly available information. “If you want to build an edge, you either need data that is faster than everyone else's or data that is broader than everyone else's,” Ameen says. That is one reason why Amwal AI focuses on aggregating large datasets from multiple sources and testing its models across decades of historical market data.

How to buy yourself a paycheck in retirement

How do you turn years of savings into a predictable income stream after retirement? An annuity is a contract between an individual and an ins. company under which the investor makes regular contributions or a lump-sum payment in exchange for future payments. While the product is common in developed retirement markets, Egyptian savers are more likely to encounter it through ins. and bancassurance plans sold by banks.

How it works

Regular contribution annuities have two phases. During the accumulation phase, the investor contributes money over a number of years. During the payout phase, the ins. company begins making payments according to the contract. Depending on the product, these payments may take the form of a lump sum, regular income, or both. A lump-sum immediate annuity has no accumulation phase, by contrast.

The trade-off is straightforward. Investors give up some access to their money today in exchange for greater certainty about future income.

The Egyptian version

In Egypt, these products typically combine investment and life ins. Every installment is divided into two parts: one covers ins. protection and the other is invested on the customer’s behalf. The investment portion may be directed toward deposits, certificates of deposit, or mutual funds with varying levels of risk.

Health affects how much is invested. Two people paying identical installments may receive different outcomes if one has chronic medical conditions. Higher ins. risk means a larger share of the premium goes toward coverage and a smaller share toward investment.

The ins. component is a major selling point. In retirement plans, policyholders typically receive whichever amount is greater: the insured sum or the accumulated investment value. In education and marriage plans, the insurer may continue paying installments if a parent dies before the plan matures.

Why people buy them

The main objective is managing longevity risk. One of the biggest financial challenges in retirement is not accumulating wealth but ensuring it lasts. Annuities seek to address this uncertainty by creating a predictable future income stream.

Many investors also value the discipline. Automatic monthly deductions create a structured savings plan that is difficult to interrupt. For some households, that discipline is as important as the eventual return.

Why retirement planning is different in Egypt

Most Egyptians do not have access to a 401(k)-style retirement account. In the United States, many employees save through employer-sponsored 401(k) plans, where a portion of salary is automatically invested over decades, often alongside employer contributions. The account belongs to the employee and is designed specifically to build retirement wealth.

Egypt's system works differently. Private-sector employees contribute to the state social ins. system, which provides pensions and other benefits such as disability and survivor coverage. Unlike a 401(k), however, it is not a personal investment account and employees do not control how contributions are invested.

That creates a retirement savings gap. Many professionals expect their future pension to cover only part of their retirement needs. As a result, they often rely on a combination of real estate, bank deposits, investment portfolios, and retirement ins. products to generate additional income later in life.

EGP 1 mn today ≠ EGP 1 mn tomorrow

The most important number may not be the payout. When evaluating a retirement plan, investors should focus on the present value of future money rather than the nominal amount they expect to receive.

Inflation erodes purchasing power over time. A plan projecting a payout of EGP 2 mn in 15 years may sound attractive today. But if inflation averages 10% annually during that period, the purchasing power of that amount could be equivalent to less than EGP 500k in today’s terms.

AI tools can help estimate this impact. Investors can use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or other AI assistants to calculate the present value of a future payout by entering the projected maturity amount, the number of years remaining, and an assumed inflation rate. The exercise can provide a more realistic picture of what the money may actually be worth.

The biggest risks

Inflation is only one risk. These products also involve a significant liquidity trade-off. Most plans require commitments of at least 10 years, making them unsuitable for money that may be needed in the near term.

Early exits can be expensive. In many products, investors cannot surrender the policy during the first two years. Even after that period, canceling early can result in losses because a large share of initial installments goes toward ins. costs rather than investment.

Opportunity cost is another consideration. Investors who lock money into a long-term annuity may miss opportunities in other asset classes. If interest rates rise sharply or alternative investments perform better, the attractiveness of the annuity may diminish.

Can inflation be managed?

Some plans allow annual contribution increases. Rather than making the same contribution every year, investors can increase installments by 5-10% annually. This helps contributions keep pace with income growth and inflation while directing more money toward investment after the early years of ins. deductions have passed.

Who are these products for?

Annuities prioritize predictability over maximum returns. They may appeal to investors seeking disciplined long-term saving, ins. protection, and a clearer path toward retirement income.

They are less suitable for investors who need liquidity. Those comfortable managing their own portfolios or pursuing higher-return opportunities through equities, real estate, or businesses often prefer more flexible alternatives.

So, is it worth it?

Annuities offer certainty, but certainty comes at a cost. They can help investors build an additional source of retirement income beyond the public pension system, while providing ins. protection along the way.

Three questions matter more than the projected return. Can you commit to the plan for at least 10 years? Are you comfortable sacrificing liquidity? And will the future payout retain meaningful purchasing power after inflation? Answering those questions may be more important than any headline return figure presented in a sales brochure.

The decisions that matter most in middle age

For many professionals in their 40s and 50s, the challenge is increasingly becoming how to make the most of their peak earning years. In an episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast (watch, runtime: 1:50:00), entrepreneur and professor Scott Galloway argues that middle age offers a significant advantage: Visibility.

Unlike in your 20s, when the future is largely unknown, by your 40s you have a much clearer picture of your earning power, spending habits, and retirement goals. “When you get to your 40s, your advantage is the following: you can see the runway,” he says, arguing that this makes it possible to build a realistic plan for long-term financial security.

Why middle age is not too late to build wealth

“Most people in their 40s are under the impression their life is over,” Galloway says, arguing that many will work for another 20-30 years and benefit from decades of compounding. He also cautions against taking excessive financial risks later in life. While younger people can recover more easily from failed ventures, Galloway warns against going “all in” on a business or investment, arguing that “slow failure” can be particularly damaging for people with families, mortgages, and accumulated savings.

The episode also offers a timely reminder about the importance of diversification. As wealth grows, Galloway argues that preserving capital becomes just as important as generating returns. “The moment you aggregate anything resembling some sort of decent amount of capital, you want to diversify like crazy,” he says. Together, his observations make a compelling case that successful personal finance in middle age is less about chasing outsized returns and more about planning carefully, managing risk, and staying disciplined over the long term.

Two books that ask what wealth is for

That same tension sits at the heart of two classic personal finance books: The M’naire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko and Die With Zero by Bill Perkins. Both reject the idea that wealth is created through luck or clever stock picking, arguing instead that financial success is largely the product of deliberate choices made consistently over time.

Where they differ is in what should happen after wealth has been built. The M’naire Next Door argues that most wealthy people become rich by living below their means, avoiding lifestyle inflation, and prioritizing asset accumulation over visible consumption. Die With Zero, meanwhile, argues that many successful professionals become so focused on accumulation that they fail to enjoy the wealth they have worked to create. Rather than maximizing net worth at death, Perkins encourages readers to maximize experiences throughout their lives, particularly those that become harder to enjoy with age.

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Today at a glance

Welcome to the third issue of Money Matters

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A house vs. a home

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The best investment decision I ever made: Karim Badr and Hanan Abdel Meguid

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Finance in the 21st Century: where access, security, and highest returns meet

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Collectible capital

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Smart money

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How to buy yourself a paycheck in retirement

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The decisions that matter most in middle age

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