Egypt Plans to Resume Stalled State IPO Program by Year End

(Bloomberg) -- Egypt plans to restart a stalled program to list or sell additional stakes in state-run companies by the end of the year, Planning Minister Hala El-Saeed said Wednesday.

The government has also received offers from four international consortia to rehabilitate and develop the Mogamma complex in downtown Cairo, El-Saeed told Bloomberg on the sidelines of an international cooperation conference in Egypt. She declined to provide additional details about the offers.

Read also: Egypt to Resume IPOs of State-Firms by End March, Minister Says

The move to restart the state IPO program appears to signal that the government is confident about market conditions that had soured over the past couple of years, in part due to broader emerging markets challenges, and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. 

El-Saeed said that there's been an improvement in Egypt's economy over the past period, including a 7.7% rise in GDP in the last quarter of the previous fiscal year. “That would support the resumption” of the program, she said.

Finance Minister Mohamed Maait told reporters will offer some of the companies before the end of the year, but declined to provide more details. Maait said that a ministerial committee responsible for the IPOs was discussing what stake to offer in state-run electronic payments firm, e-Finance. 

Read also: Egypt Readies What May Be Its Biggest IPO as Capital Emerges (1)

Al-Borsa newspaper on Tuesday, citing unidentified government officials, reported that an e-Finance offering -- already  delayed several times -- could come as early as next month and that the stake could be around 10%.

Of the more than 20 companies that the government had spotlighted when it announced the program, it's managed to only sell an additional stake in state-run tobacco monopoly Eastern Company. 

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