The Egyptian government is expected to set the oil price at 80 USD per barrel for the budget of fiscal year 2022/2023

Newsletter

09 May 2022

For our top talks today, the Egyptian government is expected to set the oil price at 80 USD per barrel for the budget of fiscal year (FY) 2022/2023. The price of imported wheat will be set at 330 USD per ton in the new budget. Egypt is planning to spend 2.070 trillion EGP in FY 2022/2023, up from 1.837 trillion EGP in FY 2021/2022. The most Arab populous country is targeting 1.517 trillion EGP revenue in FY 2022/2023, compared to expected revenue of 1.365 trillion EGP by the end of the current FY. Egypt is also seeking to reduce the budget deficit to 6.1% of gross domestic product (GDP) and to increase the primary surplus to 1.5%. The debt-to-GDP ratio is estimated at 84% in FY 2022/2023, compared to 85% in the current FY. Under the new budget, the Egyptian government is set to launch Panda Yuan-dominated bonds in China. (Asharq Business)

The Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will hold its next meeting as scheduled on May 19th.
The source said that there is no reason for holding an early meeting to discuss key interest rates following the decision of the US Federal Reserve to increase the interest rate by 50 basis points (bps). The MPC holds a meeting on Thursday every six weeks. The last meeting was held on March 21st and saw a 100-bp hike in the overnight deposit rate, overnight lending rate, and the rate of the main operation. (Al-Ahram Gate)
The Egyptian non-oil private sector economy has been affected by inflationary pressures, supply obstacles, and the ongoing geopolitical tensions in April, according to a recent press release on the S&P Global Egypt PMI™ survey.
The headline seasonally adjusted S&P Global Egypt Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), an indicator of the performance of the non-oil private sector, slightly rose to 46.9 in April from 46.5 in March, remaining below the 50 thresholds. Egypt’s non-oil businesses recorded a drop in new orders in April as inflation weighed on demand, with new business falling for the eighth successive month due to the decline in both domestic orders and exports. Hikes in costs urged companies to cut spending on materials and employment as purchasing activity slashed for the fourth month in a row, causing a drop in stock levels.
The Egyptian government aims to raise 6 billion pounds from activating the program of offering government companies for public subscription, according to the draft state budget for the fiscal year 2022-2023.
The new draft budget also included planning to issue international bonds worth 91.5 billion EGP, in addition to borrowing about 55 billion pounds from international financial institutions, compared to 12.3 billion EGP in the current budget. Hisham Tawfik, Minister of Business Sector, stated that Egypt will start offering government companies on the stock exchange starting next September. He explained that the companies' offering has been postponed to September, with the end of the summer vacation period for investors. The Egyptian government planned to offer shares in between 4 and 6 companies during the current fiscal year, which ends in late June, but it postponed the process due to global geopolitical and economic developments and their impact on the movement of investors, especially towards emerging market. (Al-Sharq Business & Reuters)
Moving to the EGX and companies talks, Egypt-based Swvl has acquired British startup Zillow, which specializes in providing transportation services to businesses and schools, in a 100 million USD deal, as part of its plans to expand into the UK market.
Swvl has acquired Spain's Shuttle, Germany's Door2Door, Latin American mass transit company Viabol, Turkey 's Vaultline , and Britain's Zillow, which specializes in transportation services for businesses and schools. Zillow is a British app that specializes in providing bus transportation to businesses and schools. The app was founded in 2014 by two British entrepreneurs who sold their startup to Addison Lee, and the founders aim to revolutionize the public transportation industry. This acquisition comes as part of Swvl's plan to expand and enter the UK market. Through this transaction, Swvl will be able to expand in the United Kingdom, South Africa and the United States, which are the markets targeted by Zillow. (WAYA)
Fine Diner, Dubai-based food delivery company, raised 150,000 USD in a Seed funding round.
Founded in 2019, Fine Diner is a B2B2C platform that leverages and utilises the spare capacity in fully equipped and under-utilised kitchens allowing them to host third-party delivery specific restaurants increasing their revenue stream and efficiency. Faisal Alabdelsalam, the Lead Angel Investor, explains, “We saw an opportunity with the Fine Diner Team that we couldn’t let pass. The team is diverse and has built a business model that is very creative, lucrative and scalable. The Team’s leadership has an ironclad entrepreneurial mindset and will find solutions to multiple challenges to achieve their vision of building the largest network of kitchens in the Middle East while minimizing, if not eliminating, the CAPEX and OPEX risks of traditional dark kitchen models”. The startup will be using the funds to expand its food delivery concepts to the rest of the UAE and across the GCC. (WAYA)
In addition, Magnet Forensics, a Canadian company that develops digital investigation solutions for enterprises and public safety organizations, has acquired Comae Technologies, a cybersecurity company specializing in incident response and memory analysis.
Founded in 2016, the UAE company is a cyber security company that specializes in cloud-based memory analysis used to retrieve evidence from devices' volatile memory. The acquisition will allow Magnet Forensics to accelerate the development of a memory analysis platform within the Magnet Idea Lab, an incubator of hundreds of investigators and analysts from leading police agencies and organizations. Adam Belcher, CEO of Magnet Forensics, commented on the acquisition: “Memory analysis plays an important role in incident response investigations because it allows organizations and public safety agencies to recover hidden evidence, and to understand what happened on devices involved in electronic accidents. (WAYA)
Earlier last month, Twitter announced that it is in talks into an agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for 54.20 USD per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately 44 billion USD.
A US Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed a list of equity investors listed by Elon Musk to contribute in the Twitter 44 billion USD deal. The investors include VyCapital, Qatar Holding, Binance, Sequoia and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Qatar Holding is contributing 375 million USD and VyCapital, Dubai-based internet related investments firm, is contributing pledged 700 million USD in addition to Binance’s 500 million USD contribution to Musk’s 44 billion deal USD. (WAYA)
Egypt Aluminum turned profitable in the first nine months (9M) of fiscal year (FY) 2021/2022, logging net profits after tax worth 1.68 billion EGP, versus net losses of 347.72 million EGP in the year-ago period.
During the July-March period of FY21/22, the company generated 10.76 billion EGP in revenue, up from 8.14 billion EGP in the same period a year earlier, according to the initial results on Sunday. Moreover, the earnings per share (EPS) stood at 4.09 EGP in the nine-month period of FY21/22, against a loss per share of 0.84 EGP in the corresponding duration of the previous FY. In the first half (H1) of FY21/22, Egypt Aluminum reported net profits worth 814.15 million EGP, compared to net losses of 341.30 million EGP in H1-20/21. It is worth noting that the firm is targeting investments at a total value of 1.22 billion EGP in FY22/23. (EGX)
Egypt Aluminum (Egyptalum) (EGAL) has turned to profitability for the first nine months of fiscal year (FY) 2021/2022.
The company recorded a net profit after tax of 1.68 billion EGP in the nine-month period ended March 31st, versus a net loss of 347.72 million EGP in the same period of FY 2020/2021. Meanwhile, revenues grew to 10.76 billion EGP in the period from July 1st 2021 until March 31st from EGP 8.14 billion in the same period of FY 2020/2021. In H1 FY 2021/2022, the company achieved a net profit after tax of 814.156 million EGP in, versus a net loss of 341.30 million EGP in H1 FY 2020/2021. Egyptalum is an Egypt-based company specialized in extruding aluminum profiles for architectural and industrial applications. The company undertakes the activities of aluminum billet casting, dies, extrusion, alloys, painting, and anodizing. (EGX)