MNT-Halan rings the bell as Banque du Caire locks in foreign cornerstones

MNT-Halan closed its first day up 6.6% at EGP 26.20, valuing the Egyptian fintech at some EGP 41.9 bn (USD 770 mn). MNT Tech Holding for Financial Investments gave back most of an intraday rally that reached EGP 28.80, with 46.2 mn shares worth EGP 1.26 bn (USD 23.16 mn) changing hands across roughly 21.7k trades.

Foreign demand alone could have filled the book, founder and CEO Mounir Nakhla told our Egypt desk on the sidelines of the bell-ringing. “In terms of demand, we could have covered it all through international investors, but we chose to allocate to our local partners as well,” Nakhla said, adding that orders came from institutions, hedge funds, long-only funds, and family offices.

Next one in line: Banque du Caire has lined up foreign buyers for more than half its IPO. Four cornerstones have committed up to USD 256 mn — UK hedge fund Helikon, London’s Redwheel, Africa-focused Sustainable Capital, and the UAE’s Waha Investments — according to BdC’s preliminary offering circular (pdf). That covers roughly 60% of the base offering and some 63% of the institutional tranche if the shares price just below the EGP 5.06 midpoint of the EGP 4.82-5.30 range, by our math.

Who’s in for what: Mauritius-based Sustainable Capital, which buys African listed equities, is down for 784.7 mn shares, about 18% of the institutional tranche. Redwheel, in the circular as RWC Asset Management, takes 490.4 mn, or 11%, through its UK business and a US affiliate, having also anchored MNT-Halan this month alongside CIB. Waha is in for 395 mn, or 9%.

Helikon’s USD 100 mn is the biggest ticket and the least certain. The London long-short investor committed a fixed USD amount rather than a share count, and it is bound only “up to a price close to the mid-point” of the range. At EGP 5.06 that is roughly 1.06 bn shares, about a quarter of the institutional tranche. Price above that and Helikon can walk, leaving committed anchor money at USD 166 mn from the other three, or 38% of the institutional tranche at the top of the range, the circular says.

ADVISORS- CI Capital is lead global coordinator and joint bookrunner, while EFG Hermes is joint global coordinator and joint bookrunner. Baker McKenzie is advising the BdC and its parent on US and English law, while Helmy, Hamza, & Partners, a Baker McKenzie member firm, is counsel on matters of Egyptian law. Enterprise Advisory is investor relations advisor.

Dubai Investments has set the timetable for the UAE’s first IPO of the year. It will sell 1.74 bn existing shares, 20% of DIP Holding, on the DFM, it said in its intention-to-float notice (pdf). DIP Holding runs Dubai Investments Park, a 23 mn sqm industrial and commercial hub that leases land under long-term agreements. Subscriptions run 27 October to 3 November with trading on or around 11 November, pending approvals. The price range comes on 27 October and the final price is set on 4 November through a bookbuild.

The size: Management previously valued the unit at AED 10.8-11 bn, putting the stake at AED 2.16-2.2 bn (c. USD 590-600 mn), by our math — in line with Dubai Residential REIT’s USD 584 mn float last May and about 1.5x Alec’s USD 381 mn IPO. Dubai Investments keeps the proceeds and cannot sell more shares until May.

The split: Qualified investors take 92% with an AED 1 mn minimum and retail 5% at an AED 5k minimum, with 2% for the parent’s individual shareholders and 1% for employees. DIP Holding expects semi-annual dividends totalling AED 700 mn for 2026, AED 725 mn for 2027, and AED 750 mn for 2028 — a 6.4% yield at the midpoint of that valuation, by our math.

The float has been on the table since Dubai Investments said in January 2025 it was looking to take four subsidiaries public, slipping to February and then to the fall after the war triggered a regional sell-off. Executives are meeting investors until next Monday, 26 October, Bloomberg reported.

Asyad Group is selling up to 6.25% of Asyad Shipping in a follow-on offering. The secondary sale splits into a 5% institutional tranche and up to 1.25% for retail, with Oman Investment Bank and Sohar International as joint global coordinators and issue managers, according to a disclosure (pdf). Pricing is set when the institutional book closes tomorrow and announced with allocations next Monday, 26 October. Retail buys at that price on a date still to be fixed.

The sweetener is a fixed dividend. Asyad Shipping expects to declare USD 150 mn (c. OMR 58 mn) for FY 2026, split evenly between September 2026 and March 2027. Guaranteed dividends are how the Oman Investment Authority has drummed up demand for its portfolio companies’ listings over the past two years, as we previously reported.

IN CONTEXT- The sale takes Asyad’s freefloat past the MSX’s 25% minimum, a step due within two years of the 20% float that raised USD 332.8 mn in March 2025. It lands a day after Asyad Shipping posted a 107% y-o-y jump in 9M net income to OMR 67.7 mn on surging crude and liner rates.

Adia and QIA took 4.81% of the anchor book in Jio Platforms’ USD 3.2 bn IPO, worth INR 3.9 bn (c. USD 41 mn), according to Jio’s allotment filing (pdf). Adia, which bid for more of the company, got INR 2.4 bn (c. USD 25 mn) through two vehicles, and QIA INR 1.5 bn (c. USD 16 mn) through its wholly owned INQ Holding.

Demand ran close to 30x. Jio allotted 72.5 mn shares to 212 anchors at INR 1.12k, the top of its band, raising INR 81.1 bn (USD 854 mn) against nearly USD 25 bn of bids, Reuters reports. Indian institutions took almost half the book, and public subscription runs today to Friday.

The big Gulf cheques were written in 2020. Adia’s anchor ticket is about 4% of the INR 56.8 bn it paid for 1.16% of Jio six years ago. PIF, which took 2.32%, and Mubadala, which took 1.85% the same year, are not in the anchor book and are not selling, since the IPO is entirely a fresh issue. Those deals valued Jio at c. USD 65 bn against up to USD 108 bn now, about 1.7x in USD terms.

Mubadala is in an investor group bidding for Canaccord Genuity’s UK wealth arm. The Abu Dhabi fund is part of a consortium led by Centerbridge Partners negotiating for Canaccord Wealth in a deal that would value the unit at roughly GBP 1 bn (c. USD 1.3 bn), Bloomberg reports, in copy also carried by TradingView and Newsquawk. Earlier exclusive talks with Warburg Pincus and with Clayton Dubilier & Rice have lapsed, and an agreement could land within weeks. Canaccord shares rose 2.7% in Toronto.

Kuwait raised USD 3.25 bn from a dual-tranche USD bond on Monday, its third public international sale in just over a year. It sold USD 2.25 bn of three-year notes at 75 bps over US Treasuries, 30 bps inside guidance, for a 5.619% yield, and USD 1 bn of 10-year notes at 105 bps, in from guidance of 130 bps, for 6.198%, Al Jarida reports, citing IFR. Peak orders topped USD 9.1 bn, about 2.8x the issuance, the Finance Ministry said, with final orders excluding lead managers above USD 7.8 bn.

Most of the extra cost is the Treasury curve, not Kuwait. The three-year yield has gone from 4.016% in its October 2025 sale to 5.039% in July 2026 and 5.619% now, a 160 bps climb, while its spread over Treasuries widened 35 bps across the same three deals.

The three sales take Kuwait’s USD bond borrowing to about USD 20.75 bn since September 2025, past the top of the USD 10-20 bn range officials flagged for 2025-26. The 2025 debt law caps public debt at KWD 30 bn (USD 97.4 bn), and last month the government lifted a decades-old ban on borrowing from its sovereign wealth fund.

Oman is selling up to OMR 150 mn (c. USD 390 mn) of seven-year local sovereign sukuk at a 4.85% yield. The 12th issuance of the local program and the second of 2026 is sized at OMR 100 mn with an option to add OMR 50 mn, and subscriptions close on 25 October, Oman News Agency reports. That is 70 bps above the 4.15% on its last seven-year sukuk in December 2025.

Refinancing is driving the borrowing, not the deficit. More than three-quarters of Oman’s OMR 2.3 bn financing need for 2026 is OMR 1.76 bn of maturing debt, with the OMR 530 mn deficit making up the rest, according to Finance Ministry figures. The 2026 borrowing plan pencils in two local sukuk of OMR 125 mn each. After OMR 120 mn in June, a fully upsized issue would take 2026 sukuk sales to OMR 270 mn, above the OMR 250 mn budgeted.

Taqa is marketing a two-part USD bond, its first since going private. Abu Dhabi National Energy Company is out with a long five-year green tranche at initial thoughts of around 130 bps over US Treasuries and a 10-year at around 140 bps, Zawya reports. Moody’s is expected to rate the notes Aa3 and Fitch AA-, both in line with Taqa’s own ratings. The bonds settle on 26 October and mature in April 2032 and October 2036. Green proceeds fund or refinance projects qualifying under Taqa’s green and blue finance framework, with the 10-year going to general corporate purposes.

It joins a run of regional issuers back in the market in recent weeks, mostly banks — Emirates Islamic, FAB, and Mashreq among them.

Gulf Keystone and ShaMaran Petroleum have agreed to an all-share merger, creating what they call one of Iraq’s largest independent oil producers, the two said yesterday. The combined company would hold four adjacent fields in the Kurdish region with 53k bbl / d of production capacity and 323 mn barrels of reserves, plus a 25% stake in the Hamrin field in Federal Iraq.

Others are hedging out of Kurdistan. Foreign producers there are weighing acquisitions in other markets to guard against disruption from the recurring payment disputes between Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government. London-listed Genel Energy is in a competing bid with Norway’s DNO for Egypt-focused Capricorn Energy, Asharq Al Awsat reports.

ALSO WORTH KNOWING

UAE packaging manufacturer Hotpack has bought a stake in Oman’s Pride Packaging, with plans for an integrated packaging complex in Barka, according to a company statement. Pride, a subsidiary of Omani fisheries group Sea Pride, makes corrugated cartons, and the planned complex would bring several packaging lines under one roof. The stake size, transaction value, and construction timeline were not disclosed.

Vrtx raised USD 3.6 mn in pre-seed funding to build embedded-finance infrastructure in the Kingdom, backed by SC Ventures, Sadu Capital, BYLD, Suhail Ventures, F6 Ventures, TAZ Investment, and Palm Ventures, according to a statement. The fintech also has in-principle approval from the Saudi Central Bank for an Electronic Money Institution license.

Nabta has reached the second close of its USD 3 mn pre-Series A. The UAE-based preventive healthcare platform for women will use the money to commercialize and scale as it moves out of R&D, it said in a press release. ADGM-based Phoenix Venture Partners led, joined by other VCs, family offices, high-net-worth individuals, and institutional investors.

Dubai-based Popcorn AI Studio raised USD 1 mn in pre-seed funding led by Emirati tech entrepreneur Mohammed Bin Bouta Alharsousi (LinkedIn), according to a press release. It will develop its platform and grow its user base in the UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

Emirati state defense firm Edge backed Israel-based autonomous aviation software firm High Lander’s USD 16 mn raise, according to a press release. Edge’s own contribution was not disclosed.

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