Egypt's first fin-tech company, e-finance, said it would be sold in an initial public offering (IPO) by the end of the year, Ibrahim Sarhan, head of e-finance said at the Euromoney Egypt Conference, held in Cairo on Monday. Sarhan said the company would fall under the IPO programme by the end of 2019 weeks after he told Ahram Online that the awaited offering was “subject to the government's will… and not a final order.” Last week Egypt said it was gearing up to implement the second wave of IPOs in September. E-finance, which operates the government's financial network with a paid capital of EGP 500 million, will be the second company to be sold in an IPO after Banque du Caire. Banque du Caire will offer a stake of its shares, ranging between 30 and 40 percent, which is expected to garner between $300 million and $400 million, CBE Governor Tarek Amer said in previous statements. In 2016, Egypt announced the launch of the IPO programme by offering a portion of shares in state-owned companies on the EGX to revive the market as part of the country's economic reform programme. The IPO programme aims to attract investments to the domestic market and make ultimate use of state assets. The programme is scheduled to be fully implemented within three to five years over 23 companies and banks in various sectors, including real estate, services, petroleum, and chemicals, targeting to collect approximately EGP 8 billion, according to the initial statement of the fiscal year 2019/20 budget. Egypt offered a stake of 4.5 percent of Eastern Company's shares on the EGX with a total value of EGP 1.72 billion in March.
