Hurghada airport has witnessed the first inbound EgyptAir flight from Russia onboard with 300 tourists

Newsletter

10 Aug 2021

For our hottest news of the day, Hurghada airport has witnessed the first inbound EgyptAir flight from Russia onboard with 300 tourists, signaling the commencement of the air traffic between the two countries. EgyptAir is expected to run 4 weekly direct flights from Moscow to Hurghada in addition to 3 weekly direct flights from Moscow to Sharm El-Sheikh. We believe the return of Russian tourists is key to the revival of the tourism industry which has been affected by the global lockdown due to the pandemic. It is worth noting that direct flights between Egypt and Russia have been on halt for six years

Second, the local debt market is booming with the latest issuance of Government T-Bills recording the highest level of oversubscription in 2021 with the issuance being covered 4.83x compared to 2.89x in the previous week.
This highlights the attractiveness of the emerging market debt to international investors with Egypt in particular, which has one of the highest carry trades, benefiting from an increase in capital inflows.
Third, Mohamed Omran has been re-appointed as the Chairman of the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) for a one-year term by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, while Osama Rabie's appointment as Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) has been extended for one year.
Mohamed Omran was appointed as chairman of the FRA in August 2017 after acting as the Chairman of the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX) from for a period of six years from September 2011 until August 2017.
Equally Important, The Financial Regulatory Authority has approved the launch of the second nano-finance product in the Egyptian market in a move to achieve the Central bank of Egypt’s strategy of financial inclusion.
The product allows borrowing up to 3,000 EGP to be repaid over a period not exceeding 90 days designated to fund the financial needs of micro enterprises such as independent farmers and street vendors. The nano-finance portfolio has nearly doubled over a period of 7 months surging to 1.5 million EGP in July 2021 compared to 790,000 EGP by the end of 2020.
With regards to the M&As, The Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX) has announced the execution of a mandatory tender offer (MTO) on 99.5% of the unlisted shares of Blom Bank Egypt.
Earlier, Bahrain’s Arab Banking Corporation had submitted an acquisition offer to purchase 100% of Blom Bank Egypt’s shares at 22.33 EGP/1.42 USD per share. The MTO involved the trading of 298.6 million shares at a total value of 424 million USD.
Furthermore, Emirates NBD to provide 2 bn EGP financing to a consortium of four construction firms to build the largest agriculture treatment plant in El Hamam to provide water to irrigate up to 500k feddans in the western desert.
Construction work commenced in mid-February and upon completion, the plant will provide 9 million cubic meters of water per day and will include the construction of a 120 km waterway to carry drainage water from Delta governorate to the plant in El Hamam.
Moving on to our companies’ coverage, CI Capital’s Q2-2021 net profits surge 109% y-o-y to record 188 million EGP.
The consolidated financial results have been supported by the strong performance of the investment banking division, which oversaw only IPO of 2021 of the educational platform Taaleem in addition to the to the strong performance of Reefy, the group’s SME lending arm, which has a lending portfolio of 1.3 billion EGP.
By the same token, Rameda Pharmaceuticals reported a consolidated profit of 61.8 million EGP for the first half of 2021.
Revenues grew by 22.9% y-o-y to record 537.8 million EGP supported by an increase in sales of anti-viral products used in Covid-19 protocols in addition to an increase in anti-biotics sales. Moreover, net profits during the Q2 2021 have witnessed an increase of 19.1% y-o-y on the back of a decline in raw materials costs compared to Q1 2021.
With regards to the efforts against covid-19, Egypt receives the first batch of 261,600 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine obtained in collaboration with the African Union as part of the health ministry’s plan to provide multiple covid 19 vaccines.
The health ministry’s spokesperson announced that the J&J doses will be distributed to the 126 vaccination centers across the nation dedicated to travelers where it is possible to obtain QR code proof of vaccination. We’re expecting to receive 25 million doses of J&J vaccine through the African Union in addition to 4 million doses order placed directly with the company.