(Bloomberg) — Egypt’s state-run e-payments company soared Wednesday in its trading debut after the biggest initial public offering on the local stock exchange since 2015.
E-Finance for Digital and Financial Investments jumped 40% to 19.51 Egyptian pounds at 10:02 a.m. in Cairo, providing fresh incentive for authorities to push ahead with a long-stalled government program to take more companies public.
The company raised more than $370 million in the public offering, which was 61.4 times oversubscribed. Egypt’s benchmark EGX 30 Index rallied for 10 days in anticipation of the IPO before dropping Tuesday.
E-Finance “looks to be Egypt’s ‘hottest’ issue so far,” Prime Securities analysts wrote in a note on Tuesday. The analysts also wrote last week that the stock “could be a liquidity booster, given its ability to attract some cash that was originally on the sidelines.”
The E-Finance IPO is key for Egypt, which saw a program to either float or sell additional stakes in more than 20 state enterprises grind to a halt amid tough conditions for emerging markets that were exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis. The program largely stalled after the 2019 sale of an additional 4.5% stake in tobacco monopoly Eastern Co.
Officials have said that they plan to offer other companies before the end of this year, though they haven’t detailed which. A strong showing by E-Finance could provide a sorely needed boost to that effort. The IPO is the biggest since the 2015 listing of Emaar Misr for Development SAE, according to the Egyptian Exchange.
Egypt Readies What May Be Its Biggest IPO as Capital Emerges
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