Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the start of a new — and this time, full — workweek. We’ve got a packed issue to kick off the week.

FIRST UP- Banque du Caire announced its intention to float 30% of its shares on the EGX, with subscriptions expected to close toward late October and trading to start in November. We have more details below.

Elsewhere in today’s issue: Are you freelancing in Egypt without having registered anywhere? You’re not alone, and today’s edition of The Enterprise Guide walks you through what it takes to do it properly — and why you need to. We also tune into NYT’s The Interview for the commute home, and give you the deets on tonight’s Egyptian Premier League headliner: Al Ahly vs. Zamalek.

But first, the news…

THE BIG STORY TODAY-

📍Banque du Caire (BdC) is finally going public. The state-owned lender announced this morning it plans to float 30% of its shares on the EGX, according to an intention-to-float notice published on its website. Parent Banque Misr (BM) will sell 4.575 bn existing shares in a fully secondary offering, and pocket all proceeds. The notice expects subscriptions to close toward late October and trading to start in November, subject to the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) approval of its public subscription notice, plus EGX sign-off.

Why it matters: This is the listing the state’s privatization program has been promising since before covid. If BdC prices near the EGP 80-80.5 bn fair value reported in September, the stake would fetch some EGP 24 bn (c. USD 460 mn), by our math. That is roughly three times the USD 150 mn MNT-Halan is raising this month, which is already the EGX’s biggest IPO in USD terms since e-Finance in 2021, meaning that two of the bourse’s largest offerings in years will now debut within weeks of each other.

What’s on the table

Two tranches, no price. BdC will run a private offering for qualified investors in Egypt and abroad, including US institutional buyers under Rule 144A, with Regulation S covering the rest. A public offering for individual investors will run in Egypt. The ITF gives no price range or tranche split, and it names no cornerstone investors. The EBRD and IFC were reported in August to be weighing a combined 10% of the bank, split evenly between them, but neither lender gets a mention in the ITF.

BdC earned EGP 8.9 bn in 1H 2026, for an annualized return on equity of 27.6%. Its net interest margin rose to 7.4%, even as the CBE cut rates by 825 bps. The bank credits cheaper deposits and a mostly fixed-rate retail loan book.

It has the country’s largest branch network outside Banque Misr, NBE and the Agricultural Bank of Egypt. That’s 233 branches, 143 of them outside Greater Cairo, plus 2,205 ATMs across all 27 governorates, serving 3.2 mn customers.

The people

The bank is led by Hussein Abaza, well-known to global and emerging-market investors from his time leading CIB. Abaza joined BdC in 2024 with more than 30 years in banking and multiple Extel awards. His three deputies have more than 25 years of experience each. Bahaa El-Shafie, ex-QNB Al Ahli, joined in 2021. Hisham Abdelaal, who joined in 2024, has worked at Bank NXT, AAIB, Arab Bank and NBAD. Ahmed Effat, who joined in 2023, has worked at Citibank Egypt, Banque Misr and ADIB-Egypt.

ADVISORS- Our friends at EFG Hermes are joint global coordinator and joint bookrunner, with CI Capital serving as lead global coordinator and joint bookrunner. Baker McKenzie advises the bank and its parent on US and English law, while Helmy, Hamza & Partners, a Baker McKenzie member firm, covers Egyptian law. Enterprise Advisory is the Investor Relations advisor.

^^We’ll have more on this story in tomorrow’s edition of EnterpriseAM.

The gas crunch gave Egypt every reason to speed up its energy transition, and the question now is who builds it and who pays for it.

Power Trip, our four-part signature series, turns this week to the transition and the private developers now building much of Egypt’s new power.

Issue II looks at how the deals behind these projects work, who is lending to them, and why the country is building a nuclear plant at El Dabaa alongside its solar and wind farms. We also look at whether the regional crisis has finally pushed industry toward renewables, and at the factories Egypt is counting on to build its own panels, batteries, and turbines.

Coming straight to your inbox on Wednesday, 14 October.

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

• Annual urban inflation eased for a second straight month to 13.9% in September, down from 14.5% in August and its lowest level since February. Monthly prices rose 1.3%, the fastest pace since May, after falling 0.4% in June and barely moving in July and August. However, the annual relief was driven largely by a favorable base effect: prices had jumped 1.8% m-o-m in September 2025, so this year’s smaller rise was enough to pull the annual rate down;
• S&P Global Ratings affirmed Egypt’s sovereign credit at B/B, and Fitch Ratings set it at B, both with a stable outlook. Both agencies credited the flexible exchange rate, record reserves, and multilateral support for their assessments. S&P noted foreign portfolio outflows reached USD 9.5 bn and the EGP depreciated up to 15% before stabilizing; Fitch said outflows exceeded USD 6 bn and the currency lost over 14% before recovering;
• Egypt and South Korea upgraded their relationship to a strategic partnership last week, with Presidents Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Lee Jae Myung launching negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and signing 12 cooperation documents. The agreement is meant to cover trade in goods and services, economic cooperation, and supply-chain resilience;
• Damietta Container and Cargo Handling Company (DCHC) has added MSC’s weekly Himalaya service to its schedule, with the first call made by the MSC Siena on Thursday, 8 October. The service links India to the Eastern Mediterranean through Damietta Container Terminal before continuing to ports in Spain and Portugal.

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Every Tuesday and Thursday, we also cover the startups and established firms across MENA putting AI to work, and how it is changing jobs, education and the way business runs.

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☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Care for some breeze, Cairene? Well, you’re in luck. We’re in for hazy and breezy weather conditions in the capital tomorrow, with temperatures set to peak at just 30°C alongside a chilly overnight low of 20°C, according to our favorite weather app.