On financial freedom and growing Thndr with Ahmad Hammouda

Ahmad Hammouda: I think if I want to be extreme, being in debt is modern slavery. Because you’re in debt. 

Investing is a means to make more money, which is another means to live life on your own terms.

Every day, more and more people are embracing this. We love to call it at Thndr — it’s a movement, right? It’s a movement against overspending, against buy now, pay later. 

It’s a movement.

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Patrick FitzPatrick: Hey, everyone. 

Today on Making It I’m talking to Ahmad Hammouda. 

Hammouda is CEO of Thndr, the app that turned phones into brokerage accounts for Gen Z and younger millennials. 

Six years ago, Thndr was a pitch deck without a license, the dream of the guy who was running Uber in Egypt. Today, it holds about EGP 50 billion, or nearly USD 1 billion, for some 700,000 people.

For the past couple of years, four out of every five investors new to the stock market came in through Thndr, and something like 40% of the orders hitting the bourse on any given day now flow through the company’s systems. In April, for the first time, Thndr topped the EGX brokerage league table, nudging out EFG Hermes, the regional investment banking giant, and has kept the top spot ever since.

Hammouda didn’t take the straight path to get there. He was an investment banker for eight years and then tried a dark kitchen startup that didn’t make it before he moved to Uber. Cairo was Uber’s fifth biggest city in the world by rides when Hammouda was there, and one of the few major markets anywhere in which it made any money.

Then in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, the Financial Regulatory Authority gave Thndr license number 804, the first new brokerage license Egypt had issued since 2008.

There are a couple of reasons I wanted Hammouda to come on the show. The first is that Thndr stopped being a startup somewhere along the way, and I don’t think the rest of us have really caught up. It’s a big, economically significant Egyptian financial institution. Some pretty tough questions come with that. 

What happens to the market if Thndr goes dark? What happens to a generation of first-time investors when they live through their first bear market? And what does it mean for the banking industry that a growing chunk of the deposits that they used to take for granted now live on Hammouda’s platform?

The second is that I think Hammouda is one of the first modern startup CEOs to have stayed at the wheel long enough, and been successful enough, to have just become the CEO of an important Egyptian corporation. 

I look at him and the CEOs of Breadfast and Trella and MoneyFellows, and like everybody else, they took venture capital money when anyone who could string together a semi-coherent sentence could raise a seed round. 

But then they led their businesses through fire: devaluation, hyperinflation, the flight of talent to the Gulf.

And they’re still standing when others have closed or pivoted or scaled back, or even fled to other countries. I just don’t think it’s accurate to call Thndr a startup anymore, and I want to know what crossing that line felt like from the inside.

Okay, before we get going, do me a favor. Subscribe to Making It on YouTube or wherever you’re listening right now. We have a new episode for you every Thursday that you can take with you into the weekend, or listen to on your drive home.

Okay. Ahmad Hammouda, CEO of Thndr. Here we go.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Ahmad, welcome to Making It.

Ahmad Hammouda: Thank you. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.

Patrick FitzPatrick: It’s my pleasure, man. 

Listen, somewhere in the last six years, you stopped being a startup. That’s my theory, at least. You stopped being a startup, and you just started running this systemically important Egyptian institution.

Ahmad Hammouda: Actually, it was back in 2024. And it’s actually part of our strategy. We need to transform from this exciting startup to this exciting business.

Patrick FitzPatrick: So you made a conscious decision?

Ahmad Hammouda: It is a conscious decision. Actually, back then it was obvious to me that even as a region, we’re really good at building from 0 to 1. And then from 0 to 1, all it takes is hustling, wearing several hats, doing so much. [But] evolving into a business [is] where actually the system matters. The process matters.

I remember back then we landed on the most important piece to become a business, which is prioritization.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Because you can’t do everything all at once?

Ahmad Hammouda: You can’t. It’s not a function of doing so many things, but actually figuring out what are the right things that we need to focus on. And the most important aspect that we had is: how can we transform into a business but still think like a startup?

What we landed on: one, we’re going to dig deeper into understanding our users and who we are serving. [Two,] we’re going to dig deeper into understanding the quality of our revenues, whether it is sustainable, [and] to what extent we have agency on our growth. 

Elhamdulliah, looking back over the past two years, it actually worked beautifully for us.

And going back to how we can evolve into a business while still thinking like a startup, we started implementing this idea of 10x growth. There is this book [10x Is Easier Than 2x, Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy] that talks about how it’s easier to go for 10x growth versus 2x or 3x growth.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Explain it.

Ahmad Hammouda: If I’m asking you to grow 2x or 3x, what I’m asking you is to continue extracting more growth from what you have. The moment the goal is 10x growth, you’re getting a free pass to start thinking big. And this is, I think, what we’ve done in 2024. I remember back then assets under custody was around USD 140 million.

We hit this earlier in May, and now [we have] our target for 2030. We’re not doing a three-year chapter, because 2029 is boring. 2030 would—

Patrick FitzPatrick: More brandable, right? 

Ahmad Hammouda: Right, exactly. In Egyptian pounds, [we went] from EGP 7 billion to EGP 50 billion, and now we want to go to EGP 500 billion. This is what we’re trying to do. We’re going to operate [and] think like a business, but we will always have the goals of a startup, which in my point of view should always be 10x.

Patrick FitzPatrick: What was the pivot or the moment where you realized, “We have to start thinking more like a business,” as you put it?

Ahmad Hammouda: It is the moment when, to be honest, I was seeing a mismatch between the buzz about Thndr, the external buzz about Thndr, and actually looking at our numbers. This is when I realized this is the right time where we need to start paying more attention to our business.

And we’re very big believers in the capital markets. We’re very big believers that the right path for each company is to grow until it becomes IPO-able, becomes investable.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Every company?

Ahmad Hammouda: Every company should be doing this.

Patrick FitzPatrick: I will be coming back to that one.

Ahmad Hammouda: Every company should be doing this.

In order to do that, it means that you are not building a company where you’re waiting for someone to come and acquire or buy this company out. You’re building a company that would be self-sustainable on its own, right? This is the whole idea of an IPO, by the way: you’re building a company that can, on its own, grow and continue to attract more investments, as opposed to another company acquiring this company and you become part of that company. With this notion is when you realize, “No, we need to start thinking like a business.”

Also, just to be honest, and I always say this, 2021, 2022 was a great year for Egyptian startups to raise money. It was on the back of the Swvl SPAC. Everyone was so excited about Egypt back then. But then in 2023, 2024, the Swvl SPAC was not going well as expected. There were two startups in Egypt that went bust.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Went bust, yeah. Very public.

Ahmad Hammouda: And then the FX rate. The FX rate is not the issue, right? It’s the sentiment about Egypt. All of these three factors were happening. Egypt was untouchable. Everyone was pushed to expand beyond Egypt.

And it’s not a function of whether fundraising is there or not. You need to figure out how to survive and continue delivering on your impact. And I would actually give it to my co-founder [Seif Amr]. 

We’ve always said that whatever next fundraising rounds we do, the fundraising round will be to finance extra growth, and not to finance the business or the continuity of the business. And if you want to do this, then you stop thinking like a startup, where you assume that fundraising will never stop. 

Patrick FitzPatrick: It’s infinite, yeah. 

Ahmad Hammouda: But it has to be a self-sustaining business.

Patrick FitzPatrick: You actually have to be profitable on the basis of operations.

Ahmad Hammouda: You have to have at least a clear path towards being profitable.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Can I ask you, man, in simple terms: you guys started off, “We want people to trade [on] the exchange.” Today, you’ve got a hell of a lot more on that app than trading [on] the exchange. 

What is Thndr today?

Ahmad Hammouda: The obvious gap was trading the stock market in Egypt. No one was building for it. We did not pioneer mobile-first trading on the Egyptian stock market, but we did it right. We had [a] proper understanding of how to build a technology-first platform. 

From 2021 to 2024, this is our trading era. And by the end of 2024, actually during 2024, we became the number one trading platform on the Egyptian stock market for retail.

Back then, to be honest, and this is part of the big realization for the change, we thought that we were democratizing investing, because this is what we wanted to do.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Okay.

Ahmad Hammouda: But when you looked at the numbers and at our business, we’d built a better trading business. 

Patrick FitzPatrick: How so?

Ahmad Hammouda: If you look at our numbers back then, like I said, USD 150 million of assets under custody in 2024, 85% was brokerage: buying and selling stocks in the market.

And then the moment we started segmenting our users, and I have to give this to our current head of product, Azzam [Abdelrahman Azzam], we realized that it’s not a function of wallet sizes. It’s a function of behavior. 

We have two very distinct types of users. We have the traders: full-on, dedicated, passionate about trading, and all they need is more. More tools, more features, and always, “I want more substance from you guys.” And then we have the lifestyle investors, which is everyone.

Patrick FitzPatrick: So those are people who just want to park some money and see it appreciate.

Ahmad Hammouda: Which is everyone. But these are very busy people. They have so much on their plates. The biggest mistake that we had [was] that we’d been building for an average user who does not exist. We were winning because we were a relatively better trading app, and this is when we had this realization.

We called the chapter between 2025 and 2027 the Lightning chapter. I remember having this meeting: “Guys, for the lifestyle investors, it’s crystal clear. We’re failing for the traders. We’re not there.” Then I had a meeting with the board and I was like, “Guys, I’m going to have a roadmap for the traders, and I’m going to give them the platform that they deserve.”

And we built Thndr X, and it is the equivalent of Robinhood Legend and all of this. I’m not sure if anyone would believe us, but we had been working on Thndr X even before Robinhood launched [Legend]. I think at the same time, Robinhood realized the same thing, that they have two different [users].

When we looked at our margin, the cost of using Thndr as a trader, we found out that it was high. And then I had this conversation with the team: “We will be committed to offering the best experience at the lowest margin to our users.” So we launched Thndr Trader.

And then, for the lifestyle investors, we built the first investment supermarket in Egypt: one platform, different investments and mutual funds. This supermarket of mutual funds is what we actually pioneered. And then we created a product called Alpha. Alpha would ask you four questions and, through our research department, Rumble, it would recommend the right allocation for you, which is, to be honest, the equivalent of wealth management in banks.

What are your goals, and what is your financial reality? How much money are you making? How much money can you invest? What are your commitments? What are your goals? Because investing is not a function of risk tolerance. It’s a function of your financial reality and your goals.

During 2025, we acquired our asset management license. The idea is to start producing more products.

Patrick FitzPatrick: You want to create your own funds. 

Ahmad Hammouda: Different themes. We’re very big on our marketplace. We’re very big on the partnerships that we have. But there are different themes that are not yet in the market where we’re very interested in innovating. 

We’re in a very similar place [to] where Netflix was before they started originating their movies. They had the best streaming platform, but they had little agency over their growth, because their growth was reliant on HBO, Disney [and] Hulu producing this interesting, exciting content. What they started doing is, “We will continue to stream your content, but we will play a role in producing our own content for our users.” Different themes, different flavors. And this is what we want to do with Thndr.

This is why this year we actually launched our elevated gold product, where it competes with physical gold, but without the need to find a safe place at your home to store it, and without the need to wonder whether this guy is giving you the right pricing or not.

So actually, if I go back to your question: 2021 to 2024, a relatively better trading platform. 2025 to 2027, we pioneered [the] investment supermarket and we started matching what we aspired to build since day one, which is a world-class trading experience. This is 2025, I would say. 

But then 2027 to 2030 is actually two things. [It was] doubling down on this investment supermarket and becoming the primary investment account. So whoever wants to invest his money — we’re not building the primary banking account, we’re building the primary investment account.

And also, we have so much in our pipeline for the traders: to Saudi and to Abu Dhabi, and very soon to the whole Arab world, the Arabic-speaking population. This is another business that we’re building, another dream that we’re building. Instead of having relatively smaller markets that by no means can compete with how exciting and deep the US market is, if we’re able to consolidate the 16 markets in the Arab world that are part of the Arab Federation of Exchanges — one platform, one wallet, one account and access to those 16 markets — it’s not equal to 16 times, it’s equal to 100 times. And then hopefully other indices would take note, and we’d see more consolidation across the Arab population.

One thing that has been very special about our journey, and we’re very proud of, is if you go back to 2019, there was this spike in investment platforms across the globe, and there were a couple of things common between these companies. One, this idea of a world-class trading experience, of making it easy and accessible. But also making it easy and accessible for everyday individuals to invest in the US: this promise that you will be able to own shares in Apple, Tesla and so on. Right? 

Back in 2019, we had a very different perspective, which is we will bring a world-class trading experience and make it accessible and easy for everyone, but with a focus on the local markets.

I genuinely believe that the flywheel of any economy is people not drowning in debt, not overspending, but rather allocating a portion of their income to build more wealth, to live life on their own terms, to have the life that they aspire to. And this portion is actually channeled to local investment opportunities.

On the other side of the table are those who have specific skills, expertise, an established business model or an idea, and they need funding. If we properly channel those savings to those opportunities, then more jobs are created: more economic activity, more independence, more disposable income, more money.

They call it capital formation. I would call it the innovation cycle. It took Apple four years to go public. It took Amazon four years to go public. As an everyday individual in the US, you had the opportunity to be one of the owners of Apple and Amazon since [they were] four years [old], and [you] built so much wealth, because Apple had access to savings and they were able to finance all their crazy ideas, all their mistakes, all their flops. And this is why Apple is Apple, Amazon is Amazon and the US is the US.

So if we’re not saving and we’re drowning in buy now, pay later, as an economy, we’re doomed. It’s a trap. Investing in your own local products or local investment opportunities is where you will find emotional connection and so on.

Patrick FitzPatrick: I’m going to go back for a moment to fund management. What is a Thndr fund that a CI Capital fund isn’t? What makes you guys uniquely able to create a compelling product there?

Ahmad Hammouda: Our conversation is very, very simple. Say that we have EGP 30 billion invested in mutual funds. If, by the end of the year, our asset management company is managing EGP 30 billion of assets under custody across the same themes that the other asset managers are providing, it’s a failure.

Our asset management team is focusing on new themes that are not there in the market. We had a lot of comments on the gold products available in the market, and over the two years before deciding to build it, we’d been trying to convince the asset managers that we need to mimic the experience of buying gold from the physical market.

Asset managers are predominantly focusing on institutions, and they have to, because someone needs to build for institutions. It’s very important to have institutional money. But we’re predominantly focusing on everyday individuals, and we’re obsessed with this idea of cognitive load. Even this simple act of converting the EGP16 or EGP17 price of a certificate to the price of a gram is too much for everyday individuals. Not because they are stupid or less knowledgeable, but because they have so much on their plate. So at some point in time, we decided that we’re going to be building that.

[There’s] so much focus right now in the team on offering real estate funds, which are not there yet, and we have to do it right. I’m actually having a conversation with CI Capital [and] with Beltone, because I want their beautiful index-tracking funds to become ETFs, so [they] become traded on the exchange. My understanding [is] that they are working on it. A year from now, if it doesn’t happen, then I will have to mandate my asset management team.

So we’re not there to compete on the existing themes. We’re here to introduce new themes and new products to the market, and continue to distribute. Even if you look at our org, it’s two teams. We have a team that is working on asset management, and success looks like introducing new themes to the market. And we have a team that is leading the marketplace, and success is continuing to nurture, grow and develop this marketplace.

Patrick FitzPatrick: What gets you from 700,000-ish user accounts, active funded accounts, to 3 million, 4 million, 5 million?

Ahmad Hammouda: It’s a very good question, and it’s actually a conversation that I’m having with the team [and] the board. I think we’ve built a very strong distribution platform, and we’ve been adding to our trust equity with Egyptians over the past five years and over the past two years, and it has been going up.

Patrick FitzPatrick: So when you say trust, [you] mean they know who you are, they trust [you’re] going to be there tomorrow.

Ahmad Hammouda: Yeah. Financial institutions [are] a trust game at the end of the day. If I am allocating 20% of my monthly income to this platform, this platform has to be trustworthy, because now you’re responsible. You’re playing a big part in my future, and the future that I aspire to. And Thndr is for the believers, the dreamers, those who look forward. It’s very simple. As opposed to those who are drowning in buy now, pay later and are always looking for this immediate gratification.

Patrick FitzPatrick: If you’re using BNPL as an affordability tool and not a cash flow tool, you[‘ve] got a problem.

Ahmad Hammouda: I don’t think it’s either. You should live life within your own means. Living a life that you cannot afford will only get you more stressed. And the biggest virus for our generation is stress. Actually, I’ve been obsessed with this idea that Thndr is a stress reliever.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Tell me about that.

Ahmad Hammouda: Currently, education is very expensive. Healthcare is very expensive. Everything is very expensive. If I’m going to propose to the person I love, can I afford to? If I’m having kids, am I going to [be able to] afford to send them to school? If I want to do my own startup? It’s very difficult to achieve right now, and this is the biggest cause of stress: having those monkeys on your shoulder that you’re not addressing.

The moment you start allocating 20% of your income on a monthly basis towards investing, the moment you know that you are doing your part, is the moment you relieve a lot of the stress you have. What we want to do at Thndr, especially for the lifestyle investors: this is a means for you to, one, know that you’ve done your part, and [two,] achieve the goals that you want.

And actually, I was telling the team yesterday — it’s something that I’m trying to convince the marketing team to do a campaign about — that investing should be boring. It’s exactly like working out. Only very few people would feel excited before going to a workout. Those are the very special [ones]. This idea of allocating 20% of your income every month is not something that should excite you. But right after you do it, you would feel good about doing your part.

And the other thing is, I think if you’re paying so much attention to your portfolio, then you’re overdoing it. If you want to overdo it, then you treat it as another craft. Trading is another craft, and you need to put [in the] time to understand how it’s done, and you need to treat it the same way you would treat work. But for lifestyle investors, the end goal is that you know that you’ve done your part, that there is nothing more [to be] done.

And actually, before technology, financial services were exclusive to high-net-worth [individuals] and institutions, who, by default or by design, had really good education, support systems and so on. But then technology happened, which was a magical tool to enable financial [services] for everyone who would want to have his money working for him, rather than only working for money.

Patrick FitzPatrick: You’re not a fan of—

Ahmad Hammouda: I’m a believer.

Patrick FitzPatrick: —embedded finance, [like] Talabat now offering you the chance to [pay for] your sushi [in installments].

Ahmad Hammouda: Can you do that?

Patrick FitzPatrick: Yeah, man.

Ahmad Hammouda: No, no, no. Actually, I don’t mind you buying sushi and eating sushi every day if it’s from your paycheck or from your investment account. Investing is not this untouchable amount that you don’t touch until you’re 60 and you have no health or anything to enjoy your money. No, no. Investing is to live life on your own terms. If you’ve been investing and you want to buy sushi every day from your money, [and] this is what makes you happy - do it.

But you don’t borrow to eat sushi. You don’t borrow to buy the next iPhone or whatever. Because investing buys you options. Real-life options. It gave me the option of doing Thndr while I was at Uber. Part of my compensation was Uber stock. When I was ready to resign and build Thndr, I had two years of my kids’ tuition fees. It wasn’t a choice between getting my kids out of school and building Thndr, because if this was the choice, I wouldn’t have had the option to start.

You know what being in debt would do? [It] would take away options from you, for sure. And I think if I want to be extreme, being in debt is modern slavery. Investing is a means to make more money, which is another means to live life on your own terms. Fintech should avail financial services to individuals in a manner that would help them improve their lives, and not the other way around.

Patrick FitzPatrick: So what takes you from 700 to 5 million funded accounts?

Ahmad Hammouda: I think we’ve built a very strong distribution platform, and every day more and more people are embracing this. As we love to call it at Thndr, it’s a movement, right? It’s a movement against overspending, against buy now, pay later. It’s a movement to transform people into forward-looking people.

The bottleneck, or the block, would be having different themes for these users to mobilize their money in. In Egypt, it’s not a money problem. People have money. It’s having the right avenues for them to invest their money. And this is why I’m very excited about our marketplace team partnering with the asset managers to generate new products, and our asset management team introducing new themes.

It’s very doable to grow our business 2x and 3x as a distribution firm. But if we want to reach 5 million users, we will reach 5 million users as long as we are availing the proper avenues for them to mobilize their money.

Patrick FitzPatrick: So it’s about the product, you think?

Ahmad Hammouda: 100%.

Patrick FitzPatrick: All right. When we come back: what happens when the most powerful banker in the country starts talking about sparks in your corner of the financial system?

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Patrick FitzPatrick: Earlier this summer, Hisham Ezz Al-Arab was on the talk shows [add link: Hisham Ezz Al-Arab talk show interview], talking about how a small spark in the non-bank financial sector could shake the entire economy. Part of that was a warning about what he thought were lax credit practices among non-bank lenders, who are obviously not your favorite people either.

But he specifically singled out Thndr, saying that people don’t understand that a fund on Thndr is not the same thing as a CD or a wadi’aa at a bank. You were out there within hours, having to beat the drum and do some public education: “We’re not BNPL. We don’t offer debt. No lending, no margin. Segregated accounts.” Give me the 60-second version of that.

Ahmad Hammouda: One of the issues that we have here in Egypt is that CEOs are not talking enough to users. So whether I agree or disagree with what Hisham said, I actually respect that Hisham is allocating part of his time to talk to individuals in general.

The second piece is, Hisham was talking about buy now, pay later and credit, but then he mentioned Thndr out of place. And to be honest, he has been tweeting about how much he respects us. We had a big meeting with the bank. I went into the meeting and I was actually overwhelmed by the number of people attending, and then he came in, and I met with him after this. So I genuinely have so much respect for this kind of leadership and this kind of work.

Now, on the business part: Hisham is also the CEO of one of the largest companies on the stock market, if not in the top three. And the performance of CIB has been exceptional over the past few years. So he is a very competitive person as well. And the thing that he has to deal with right now [is] that CDs are a very outdated product.

One of the things that we say at Thndr is that the winning formula is monthly investing and diversification. So you need to allocate a portion towards company stocks, [gold], real estate and savings products. Right? 

What is the use case of savings products? [They’re] liquid. They give you [the] time to [wait] and benefit from long-term investing in companies and real estate. The use case of gold is your insurance policy. So if you’re telling me that now my savings product is locked for three years, it completely takes away from the use case of savings, right?

And then there is another product, which is money market funds. It is more secure than CDs, just to put it [simply], because when you put your money in a CD, a certificate of deposit, you are taking the risk of the bank, which is very low, like banks in Egypt.

Patrick FitzPatrick: The risk is pretty low in Egypt.

Ahmad Hammouda: But when you invest in treasuries, you are taking the risk of the government on its own local debt. A government would never fail in repaying its debt, because the government is capable of printing money. So when you think about it, treasuries, lending the government, [are] 100% more safe and secure than CDs. So now, as an individual, I have the option to earn more or less what CDs are giving me, but I can liquidate my money.

Patrick FitzPatrick: I can have my money tomorrow.

Ahmad Hammouda: Tomorrow. It’s a no-brainer product. The product was there. What we’ve done is we made it easy and accessible to—

Patrick FitzPatrick: You gave access to the average person.

Ahmad Hammouda: One of the most famous products is El Youm Bi Youmouh [day by day] at the banks. It’s the same. 

Patrick FitzPatrick: If you can get in.

Ahmad Hammouda: If you can get in. It has been an existing product. It hasn’t been accessible. The Financial Regulatory Authority [has] been doing so much in introducing changes that would enable the accessibility piece, right? And then comes 2021, Azimut - Ahmed Abou El-Saad, and then Beltone started launching their own money market funds. So what we’ve done is anyone can get in. It’s worked, it will continue to work, and we will continue to offer better products for the users.

And I think Hisham would agree. Egyptians are drowning in so much noise about how to fit in, what to buy, what not to miss, and this new standard of what is a good life. And everyone is in this maze of spending, spending, spending, spending. And we’re competing for a share of your wallet, me and Hisham. The market is huge, and competition yields better products for users. So I’m sure CIB would be improving their products, and they are capable of improving their products. It will also push us to offer more and improve our products.

Patrick FitzPatrick: I think a lot of banks are dealing with those two- and three-year CDs maturing these days, and it’s no longer an easy decision of “I’ll just roll it over.”

Ahmad Hammouda: This is why I would like to see more CEOs talking. Debating is very healthy for this economy in general, and actually it shows respect to people. It took us a day to respond with Amr Adib as well. So it was very important.

Patrick FitzPatrick: That you called in and asked for the right to reply.

Ahmad Hammouda: Yes. We made a bet on our users to address those remarks on Twitter and on socials, and they had our back.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Can I ask you the question I would be asking right now if I was the EGX? Given you account for two-fifths of turnover on any given day, what happens if Thndr goes dark? What happens to my market?

Ahmad Hammouda: We’re actually partners with the Egyptian Exchange, and we’re partners with the clearing house in Egypt. The way we think about it is we’re always working towards 3x what we have right now in terms of capacity. So this is an ongoing thing. We’re one of the very few brokerage houses in Egypt, if not the only one, that have dedicated servers on the EGX, [and a] direct line between the IT or tech team of the EGX and our team.

And the performance of the Egyptian stock market over the past five years is exceptional. I’m not talking about the performance in terms of the index preformance: [I mean] the reliability of the system, the introduction of new products. It is exceptional. This is why we think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There is a huge momentum right now, and our responsibility and duty is to actually capitalize on this. And if you talk to the Egyptian stock market, they have so much in their pipeline to keep improving and introducing new aspects to the reliability of the system.

Having said this, outages happen everywhere. So, our promise to the users, and we talked about this in our keynote event, [is] we've invested more than USD 8 million over the past two or three years in our back office only, for reliability and so on.

And we work on three things. [One is] preventing something like this from happening. But what’s also very important is the speed at which we spot an issue and the speed of us recovering. These are two things that we’re very strong at. We keep investing in them, and they have been improving drastically over the past three years.

And then the other piece is transparency. We’re very transparent with our users. If there’s an outage, we say that there’s an outage. We say what’s happening and how we are dealing with it. And then we also have a policy where, if it’s our fault, we compensate our users if we can prove the lost opportunity.

When we talk about the flywheel of us as a company, trust is the first aspect, and the reliability of our system is a function of trust. The common knowledge, or what is being said, [is that] it’s not easy to do business in Egypt.

Patrick FitzPatrick: It’s not easy to do business in Egypt. But I think when it comes to stock markets, obviously there’s been change in the last decade. But, Tadawul, ADX [and] DFM started from the base of knowledge and regulation that Egypt created.

Ahmad Hammouda: 100%. And actually, our regulator is extremely open-minded to new ideas, but you need to be the one knocking on the doors. If you’re asking, you’re building as you’re asking. It’s not, “Give me this so I can build.” If you go there building stuff and knocking on doors, they will be extremely supportive. If you wait for them to come knock on your door, it will not happen.

Patrick FitzPatrick: No. 

You said a few minutes ago that the Stock Exchange has performed well. You meant as an institution: it’s been stable and reliable. I’ll give you that. The market has also done pretty well the last couple of years, right? And you’ve got a generation, man, of people on your app, on your platform, who have only experienced a rising market. How do you prepare them for the inevitable? What goes up must come down at some point.

Ahmad Hammouda: I want to ask you a question first.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Sure.

Ahmad Hammouda: Over the last 27 years, how many years was the Egyptian stock market up, and how many years was it down?

Patrick FitzPatrick: I’ve been here for 25 years, so I should know [the answer to] that question, but I don’t.

Ahmad Hammouda: Me too. I didn’t know the answer.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Probably more down years than up.

Ahmad Hammouda: [That’s] the perception that we’re getting from movies and media in general. [It was] 20 or 21 years up and seven years down. 

So the majority of the years, the stock market has been beautifully performing. This is one. Two, actually, I would disagree. There were ups and downs during the last five years.

Patrick FitzPatrick: The market has experienced that. You’ve brought in a whole cohort of brand-new investors, right? These kids haven’t experienced—

Ahmad Hammouda: I remember doing a video in April 2024, right after the Ras El Hekma deal, right after a correction in our market, because everyone in Egypt was pricing things at EGP70 and EGP100 [to the dollar]. So when the devaluation happened to EGP50, every other asset in Egypt went down.

So we had these two videos. The first video is: “Guys, what you’re seeing right now in the stock market is what we love about investing in capital markets, because now you have clear visibility on what your investment is worth, and you can liquidate at this price right now.” And then we had the second video: “If you have been with us over the last two years, you’ve been making money, and even with this correction, you’ve still made money. You’ve seen it going down and up. And if you’re joining us now, this is the best time to start, because things will go up again.”

What I’ve also been seeing [is that] there have been ups and downs, but the recoveries, or the cycles, have been much faster than they used to be in 2008 and so on.

Patrick FitzPatrick: So far.

Ahmad Hammouda: Yeah. And I’m not sure if this is an anomaly of the past period, or if it’s actually the new pace of life in general.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Any time you say that this is the new normal — I mean, we all said work from home and masking and all that wonderful stuff was going to be the new normal. I don’t know.

Ahmad Hammouda: There will be ups and downs, and there will be downs, but the cycles will be shorter. If you’re investing on a monthly basis, diversifying across companies, gold, savings and hopefully real estate when we introduce it, in six months you will be making money. If you are allocating between 30% and 50% in companies, 20% to 30% in real estate — but it has to be REITs, and we can talk about this — and then 10% to 15% in gold and the remainder in fixed income, you’re going to make money.

Patrick FitzPatrick: So you think your users can handle a down market?

Ahmad Hammouda: Because the down market means buying at a lower cost, right?

Patrick FitzPatrick: For some people, though, it means, “I rode it down.”

Ahmad Hammouda: My assumption is you start investing when you don’t need the money. There are two things that you need to start doing before you need them: investing and therapy.

Patrick FitzPatrick: I like that. Investing and therapy.

Ahmad Hammouda: If you need the money, then investing will not help you. But [if] you’re investing before needing the money, by the time you need the money, you will have those investments backing you up.

So if you’re asking me whether you should be investing in gold right now or not, you’re asking the wrong question. 

At the start of 2026, everyone was talking about gold and buying gold, because gold was going up. Nowadays, no one is talking about buying gold. You know why? Because gold is going down. Actually, this is the right time to be buying gold, right? But you won’t need to care about this, because what you’re doing is [putting] 10% to 15% of your monthly allocation towards gold every month, regardless of the cycle.

This is why, even if your portfolio is down, I promise you, you would have been spending those 20% on things that you don’t need. So you are a winner in all cases.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Every single new client you get, you’re fighting for that client. You’re going out: billboards, social media, interviews, whatever you can do to get your name out there and acquire a client, right? It’s a very expensive game to acquire clients one by one. 

Why can a company not come to you and say, “Hey, can you onboard my entire staff? Hey, can we transfer 20% or x% to you on behalf of [our staff]?” and build out something that more resembles a Western pension fund?

Ahmad Hammouda: We’re working on this. One thing that we started over the last year: we have been doing at least one live learning session at companies. We actually go there and we educate the team about these principles: diversification, living within your means.

And then with the asset management team, we’re actually working on a product that — so if I come to Enterprise, and this is why we’re still trying to build it — would help you with retention. So there is a part that vests over time, so that you retain your team, and [it] also helps them with their financial wellness in general. Which also goes back to what we’re trying to do: if you have a less stressed team — team productivity is much better, innovation is much better. This is something in the making that we’re very big on.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Explain to our listeners — I mean, you’re a student of the US market — what’s a 401(k), and how does that work? How do companies, individuals and fund managers relate to each other in that type of setup?

Ahmad Hammouda: You allocate a portion of your income on a monthly basis towards an investment fund. It gives you tax benefits, as long as you’re committed to not withdrawing this amount until retirement. The company also contributes to this plan. And then this is your retirement option, right?

This idea that, as an everyday individual, the end goal of investing is to have a good life after retirement is not something that I’m very big on. 

I also believe that people are multiverse when it comes to their goals. So yes, one of your goals is retirement. Step one is live within your means. And then step two, and I don’t think a lot of us do that, is have an idea of what a good life means to you. I think it’s a very important exercise that you spend some time defining what a good life means to you, and then actually invest and live accordingly.

Patrick FitzPatrick: How much of your personal wealth is tied up in the company, and how much of it is in other instruments? How do you view that as a founder?

Ahmad Hammouda: Believe it or not, before Thndr, I did not use to invest. I was very lucky that part of my compensation at Uber was shares, so I got to benefit from investing. But I hadn’t been investing, and I actually relate to a lot of people who spend like there is no tomorrow. 

But since I started Thndr, I have been walking the talk, and I have been allocating 20% of my income every month. And the best thing that I got out of this, I swear, is not the returns. It’s that now, every month, I feel that I have done my part for my kids.

I have to admit, my number one driver as a founder was actually to give back to my parents. Not financially, but — I don’t remember my dad and my mom going on a trip. Every pound that they made was for our education, whether it was IG, AUC and so on. And for me, it was very important to make it worth it for them.

———

Patrick FitzPatrick: Let’s turn back to Thndr the business for a minute. Are you guys profitable?

Ahmad Hammouda: We are.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Not many can say that. How long have you been profitable?

Ahmad Hammouda: We’re not only profitable, we’re cash flow positive, which is even more. It’s part of becoming a business and becoming a financial institution. To give you some context, we’ve raised USD 37 million, right?

Patrick FitzPatrick: The most recent round was last year.

Ahmad Hammouda: Yes. And it had the endowment fund of one of the most reputable universities in the world, [one of the most reputable] engineering universities, if not the most reputable one, endowment fund coming into our round.

Patrick FitzPatrick: As a fund by itself, not through—

Ahmad Hammouda: In partnership with one of our most appreciated VCs, The Raba Partnerships. More than half of this amount is still in our bank. So we’ve always raised money to finance growth, but not to finance survival.

Patrick FitzPatrick: What are the big drivers of revenue and profit for you guys, if you had to segment it?

Ahmad Hammouda: Traders account for 50% of our business, and lifestyle investors account for 50% of our business.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Top line and bottom line?

Ahmad Hammouda: [In] assets under custody, it’s 50/50, more or less, [and] 60/40 when it comes to revenues. And then the expenses are the same for both. It’s actually the team and the infrastructure that we’re building. Of course, the number of lifestyle investors is much higher than the number of traders.

But again, as we become a financial institution, we’ve been taking a lot of decisions on the sustainability of the company, whether [it’s] the quality of its revenues, how we’re organized, policies and so on.

Patrick FitzPatrick: You’ve been expanding outside the country. How easy was that decision for you to make? I mean, you are the proverbial 300-pound gorilla in the market. You have first-mover advantage in the largest, most under-penetrated market in the Arab world. This is your house, yet you’re going outside, right?

The economic imperative for a lot of us who have done that is really clear: devaluation. But how easy was that decision to make versus staying focused on just owning this opportunity called Egypt?

Ahmad Hammouda: It is a very difficult decision, right? If you go back to our very early interviews, before the devaluation, in 2021, we’ve been very big on building the number one investment platform for the Arabic-speaking population. Back then, we used to refer to it as the Middle East and North Africa, but now we’re bigger. The Arabic-speaking population is what we’re building for. The first time that we talked with the regulator in Saudi was in 2021, actually. So this has been in our plan since day one. This is one.

Two, we’re genuinely very big on the impact that we have. It only makes sense if there is a huge impact or a purpose that you are after. And our regional expansion is towards building this category of active trading in the Arab world. [It] is something that we know this region deserves. We know that the capital markets of this region deserve a world-class trading experience, [and it’s] something that we’re very big on.

Having said this, I’ve been talking about this lately with the team. Saudi is not a product line that we’re adding, or a new business line. It’s a new startup that we’re building, which would require the same level of commitment, dedication and so on [as] Egypt. And hopefully it follows the same chapters: the best trading platform, the best investment supermarket, the primary investment account over the next, I would say, ten years.

So what was not easy is this realization, and making the commitment that Saudi is not a function of where Egypt and Saudi are on the sentiment curve or the trust curve, or where [each] is economically, but actually a commitment to a purpose and an impact.

Patrick FitzPatrick: In a very different market, right? There are a couple of established competitors there.

Ahmad Hammouda: Our benchmark is India. They have very vibrant local markets, and the startups are listing in India. The stock market in India actually became the engine of innovation for the Indian market. As an Arab region, we have more in common than India does as a country. There are a lot of differences [there]. But if you look culturally, even language, with all the different dialects, we’re more alike as a region than India as a market. So we have the potential, as a region, to be as exciting as India as a country. And even when you look at the US, the US is a continent on its own.

This idea of unity versus isolation is something that we’re obsessed with. When we got our IPA, our in-principle approval, in Saudi last quarter, I had this conversation with some of the board members and some of the team: “Hammouda, wow Egypt is exploding, and Egypt is—”

Patrick FitzPatrick: And Saudi is time away from Egypt.

Ahmad Hammouda: “Are you reconsidering Saudi?” I was like, “Guys, I’ve already made this commitment. Saudi is not a function of how Egypt is performing. Saudi is a function of the impact that we want to [have], and it plays a huge role in it.”

The biggest challenge is to navigate between leveraging our right to win in Egypt right now, continuing to grow a market that we’ve invested so much time and effort in, and also navigating this new opportunity and building a proper company in Saudi. But I also know that Saudi will be responsible for our next chapter’s 10x growth. And even my conversation with my team is: the moment I can’t find it in myself to continue trying to deliver on 10x growth, I would actually look for someone [else] to do it, because this is the company that we want to build.

Patrick FitzPatrick: What’s your competitive advantage in Saudi?

Ahmad Hammouda: I would say we are the only company where the bread and butter, the core business, would be the local markets. It’s not an add-on to the US offering. The US offering will be an add-on to Tadawul.

Patrick FitzPatrick: And you see that the current local players are pushing the international experience. 

Ahmad Hammouda: One million percent.  Even most of the money they make, they make from the US market. And if you’re not making money from a product, no one will be innovating when it comes to this product.

Patrick FitzPatrick: How does Thndr make money?

Ahmad Hammouda: Two things. For the traders, we have a subscription, and if you do more than 50 trades, you start paying us commission. And we’re the only trading platform in the world, I would say, or I can claim to my knowledge, that would charge you money if you trade more. Every other trading platform will be incentivizing you to trade more and will reduce its commission if you trade more. But after 50 trades a month, I want you to be more conscious about your trading activity. Also, from a business point of view, if you’re doing more than 50 trades a month, you’re putting more stress on the infrastructure, so the cost should be relatively higher.

For the lifestyle investors, we take a marketing fee for our marketplace and management fees for our own mutual funds. And if you’re not subscribed, you pay 0.1% on trading in the stock market.

There is a percentage of traders’ assets under custody that is invested in mutual funds, so they are using our asset management business and they are using our marketplace. And then if you look at the lifestyle investors, the majority would be in mutual funds.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Mutual funds.

Ahmad Hammouda: And then a portion would be in stocks as well.

Patrick FitzPatrick: You want to be in the 16 markets of the Federation of Exchanges, with 1,600 tickers. And creating size draws attention from the local market, from internationals, from everybody. But you’ve got 16 different regulatory playbooks to navigate in doing that. Does it break down on those 16? How do you get around that fundamental problem of, “No, no, this is my exchange. These are my investors. You’re going to follow my rule book.” And then the other guy is saying the same thing.

Ahmad Hammouda: Absolutely not the case. What I like about trading [is that] trading is standardized, right? A world-class trading experience on the US market is similar to a world-class trading experience on the Egyptian market: advanced charting, smart orders, tracking and so on. What changes is the tickers, right?

If you look at the Arab world — and this is why we’re very lucky to have this Arab Federation of Exchanges — there is so much harmony between the different exchanges. And in Abu Dhabi, ADX launched something called Tabadul.

Patrick FitzPatrick: It’s a dream.

Ahmad Hammouda: But it’s already—

Patrick FitzPatrick: But who are they attracting, man? Uzbekistan?

Ahmad Hammouda: No, no. They have Oman. I think they have Bahrain. They have Iraq, and they’re talking to other markets.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Not the most significant markets, right?

Ahmad Hammouda: It has to be a catch-22, right? They have to have people like us, brokerage companies, promoting those markets, helping—

Patrick FitzPatrick: But I mean, if you get EGX, DFM, ADX—

Ahmad Hammouda: They’re trying.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Tadawul, but that’s something different, right? And that’s where the politics and the rules come in.

Ahmad Hammouda: But this would make our life easier, right? So we’re in Egypt right now. We are connecting to Saudi. We’re actually in talks with DFM, and then through ADX we’re in talks with Bahrain, Iraq and the other markets. We would love to be in Morocco as well. So we’ve always aligned our interests with the interests of the region in general.

For us, it’s two things. We connect with the markets, which takes technology resources, and we build the information layer, which also takes time. They’re extremely supportive. It’s a function of us having the resources in order to deliver the quality that they want, and also the technology—

Patrick FitzPatrick: Five years down the road?

Ahmad Hammouda: By 2030, we want to be in seven markets.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Seven markets.

Ahmad Hammouda: This is what success looks like for us in the trading business. Actually, [with] DFM, we’re excited, because if we connect a country instead of having two markets, we expect to see improvement in the liquidity of those two markets, instead of having a separate experience for ADX and a separate experience for DFM. So this will validate this idea of consolidation.

Patrick FitzPatrick: And I’ll be able to have one account to trade all the markets.

Ahmad Hammouda: Yes, exactly.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Do I have one onboarding experience?

Ahmad Hammouda: One account. You open an account with Thndr right now, you’re eligible for the Egyptian market. If you want to have access to the Abu Dhabi Exchange or the US market, we ask for other information, and vice versa. We’ve already been building that. We’ve already built the most difficult part, which is the back office that can integrate with exchanges.

Patrick FitzPatrick: I am going to switch asset classes for a second — gold. 

Five years ago, gold coins and gold bars were maybe 10% of the market. Now they’re like 40% of the market. You have replicated a version of the experience of buying and selling physical gold on the app, on the platform. And in doing that, you turned a wardrobe asset into a real financial asset. What is the next asset class that goes onto the platform?

Ahmad Hammouda: But you said it. [The shift to] gold as an investment product to preserve the value of your money happened in Egypt, right? And we always say this: we’re not against you buying jewelry. Continue to buy jewelry. But when it comes to investing, the shift to buying bars and coins has already happened. The next evolution is from physical bars and coins to digital gold. This is what we’re doing. So actually, the change in behavior has already happened.

Patrick FitzPatrick: So what’s the next one? That’s the real question.

Ahmad Hammouda: The digitization. Real Estate.

Patrick FitzPatrick: In what format? You’ve got people like Bonyan, who are sort of a listed REIT. You’ve got other folks who are building things that are not listed, but are individual REITs. What does it look like for you?

Ahmad Hammouda: We’re very big on grade A investment service. Grade A investment in real estate is not off-plan, because when you buy off-plan, it’s not the real estate that you’re buying. It’s the ability of the developer to develop your property and the whole neighborhood. Grade A investment is investment in income-generating assets with clear yields.

I would say the first attempt, or the closest attempt, at a REIT is Bonyan. What Bonyan is not offering is two things. [One is] your ability to select what property you want to invest in, rather than having a pool of properties. In my point of view, the right definition of a REIT is that you have different options, and you choose how you want to allocate your investments across the different REITs, instead of me giving you a basket.

And the other thing is that Bonyan is not designed as a REIT. What a REIT offers is clarity on the distribution. It’s a very clearly mandated fund. Bonyan is a very smart model, where they wanted to give themselves more flexibility to actively manage their properties. But I would say the closest that we have in Egypt to REITs is Bonyan, for sure.

The square meter is not a gram of gold, [but] Egyptians treat square meters of real estate like grams of gold: that [they] will always go up. Real estate is exactly like companies. It depends on the neighborhood, the furnishing, the furniture. This is why it has to be income-generating, because then you will have enough data to assess whether the property is performing or not.

Patrick FitzPatrick: What’s the timeline on real estate?

Ahmad Hammouda: Q3, Q4 maximum.

Patrick FitzPatrick: This year?

Ahmad Hammouda: Yeah, Q3, Q4. But the thing is, we’re very cautious about it, because we believe that we’re building this category in Egypt, so we have to do it right. It’s not only that we’re going to make our users money. We’re going to contribute to the well-being of Egypt, and to Egypt being able to deliver on its tourism potential.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Buried way down your regulatory stack, you have an investment banking license. Run your own IPO?

Ahmad Hammouda: My IPO? Thndr?

Patrick FitzPatrick: [Why] don’t [you] run your own IPO?

Ahmad Hammouda: My dream is to IPO Thndr on the EGX. Maybe it will be a dual listing on EGX and on Tadawul. Having said this, if we actually follow through with our strategy, it won’t matter where the company is listed, because [it’s] one platform, one account, one wallet, [with] access to all the companies in the region. I think the investment banking license is part of our strategy to start taking part in availing investment opportunities.

Patrick FitzPatrick: So you’re going back to the name of that license, which is promoting and underwriting.

Ahmad Hammouda: Other investments. And when you look at our market right now, the premise is: as a company, you need to be ready to IPO, and then you come to the investment bank, and they work on the process and IPO you. As opposed to [me], as an investment bank, knocking on your door, helping you get ready. It’s multiple years of us building together until you are IPO-able.

So generally speaking, if the market is not ready and no one is doing it, then we take part in helping it, doing it or building it. And this is the idea behind us getting an investment banking [license]….

Patrick FitzPatrick: So a more active approach to identifying prospects, getting them ready to go public, helping them build a board, helping them build governance.

Ahmad Hammouda: And it’s also more than this. If our commitment is to introduce new themes, and not to build wrappers or mimic what’s already there, then you need investment banking, proper investing… 

Again, it goes back to when Netflix decided to originate movies: they had to build film professionals. Now, we have to build investment professionals, and we’re gathering the different licenses in order to be able to do that.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Why the hell would you want to go public, man, and be held accountable by the market every quarter, and have to engage in not three-year plans but quarterly plans?

Ahmad Hammouda: You don’t have to engage in quarterly plans. You need to disclose your numbers on a quarterly level. We’re already doing this for our board.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Your board is a very different thing, though, when you’re venture-backed, right?

Ahmad Hammouda: The way I think about going public is that it’s actually joining the Pro League. It’s the right formation. It’s the right cycle. At the end of the day, you have investors who backed you in the early days who would want an exit avenue. And also, the idea of IPOs is the sustainability of companies, right? I would say 90% of family-owned companies break at the third generation.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Absolutely.

Ahmad Hammouda: But for family-owned companies that are going public, this is step one to separate ownership and management of the company. And this is how you preserve the economy and preserve the good companies. It’s also how an economy becomes independent, because now, as a company, if you want to raise money, you go to investors and you finance new projects.

If the plan is not to go public, then you’re building for another company to come and buy you, which, in my point of view, is gambling, because it all depends on the other company deciding to come and buy this company.

Patrick FitzPatrick: And the forces aligning for them in their market, them having cash, everything.

Ahmad Hammouda: The flywheel of innovation in the US has been financed by capital markets. VCs and investors have been excitedly backing companies at an early stage, because they have seen companies that started, then went public, and people made so much money, and [those companies] continued to grow within this public realm. As long as you’re operating with your users in mind and not the investors, you’re going to do great, whether it’s a privately held company or a publicly listed company.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Why do you think so many leaders of publicly traded companies struggle with that? They start managing for the market and not managing for the client.

Ahmad Hammouda: And they don’t tell the stories. In Egypt and in the region, companies are not telling their stories, and then investors only assess the companies based on historical performance and the performance of their stocks. There is a reason why it took Amazon ten years to make profits while being listed and continuing to increase its value, right? Because Jeff Bezos was actually keen on telling the story of what he was building, and engaging with—

Patrick FitzPatrick: They had a narrative.

Ahmad Hammouda: They had a narrative.

Patrick FitzPatrick: People understood it.

Ahmad Hammouda: You spend a lot of time telling your story to institutions. You should spend equal time telling it to everyday individuals, retail investors, because now it’s a possibility. Ten or 15 years ago, it was not possible to talk to the masses, right? 

If you look at Robinhood, the way they do their quarterly reporting is in video format. Because even the CEOs as institutional investors are as busy. And they would love to consume information in audio or video format, rather than having to read the 40-page PDF.

Patrick FitzPatrick: So when do you go public?

Ahmad Hammouda: Hopefully, if we do as well as we’ve done in the last chapter. It’s very early, but I’m calling this chapter the Thunder chapter, with the U and the E. So the Lightning chapter, followed by the Thunder chapter, and then the chapter afterwards would be the Raining chapter. And that’s when we—

Patrick FitzPatrick: When you go public. Go make it rain for everybody.

Ahmad Hammouda: Hopefully, yeah.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Unfortunately, sir, we are out of time for today. I’m going to ask you to come back, Hammouda. This has been a good conversation, man. 

Ahmad Hammouda: Would love to.

Patrick FitzPatrick: We’ll have you back.

Ahmad Hammouda: My pleasure. Thank you.

Patrick FitzPatrick: Thank you so much.