Egypt expects to raise up to $150 million from the initial public offering of Enppi as the government pushes ahead with a plan to sell stakes in state-controlled companies.

Managers for the sale of 22 percent to 24 percent of Engineering for the Petroleum & Process Industries will be hired next month, said Ashraf Ghazaly, chief executive officer of state-owned investment bank NI Capital that’s advising the government on its IPO program. He said authorities are also studying selling stakes in companies in oil and gas, chemicals, utilities and shipping, possibly generating "billions of dollars."

The IPO program has the potential to be "very successful, but we need to move a lot faster" on obtaining clearances from the government, Ghazaly said in an interview at his Cairo office. "I can now say with confidence after studying a big number of companies that we have a lot of very good assets and we can create depth in the stock market."

The stake sales are part of broader efforts to revive an economy battered by unrest since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. Inflows have surged since Egypt’s central bank abandoned currency controls in November to secure a $12 billion International Monetary Fund loan.

Egypt is expected to have the best year for IPOs ever in 2017, the stock exchange chairman said in March. The benchmark EGX 30 Index has gained 58 percent in local currency terms since the decision to float the pound in November and average daily volumes have jumped, boosted by foreign participation.

The government completed the listing of Banque Du Caire SAE earlier this year, and plans to raise about 7.2 billion pounds ($400 million) from a stake sale that hasn’t been scheduled yet.

Source:
courtesy of BLOOMBERG

by Tamim Elyan and Ahmed Feteha

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