Egypt’s sovereign fund lining first two military-owned companies up for an IPO – official
Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) plans to privatise Wataniya Petroleum and National Company for Producing and Bottling Water (Safi), two subsidiaries of the state-owned National Service Products Organisation (NSPO), planning minister said on Thursday.
Wataniya Petroleum and (Safi) will be the first two subsidiaries of the National Service Products Organisation (NSPO) the sovereign fund will move to privatise.
Hala al-Saeed, who is also chairperson of the SFE, said the fund will market these companies to private investors in the first phase of the privatisation plan, before eventually moving to list them on the Egyptian stock exchange (EGX).
The minister made these remarks without providing further details on the timeline or expected size of the listing.
In February, SFE and NSPO had signed a cooperation agreement for the company to open up its subsidiaries for investors, after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said twice that stakes in army-owned companies and assets could be sold on the EGX as part of the state privatisation programme.
The fund was looking at 10 of NSPO’s subsidiaries to offer them up for co-investment, SFE CEO Ayman Soliman said in March. Soliman did not disclose the company names under assessment at the time, and the fate of the rest of the roster so far remains unclear
“Egypt’s SWF seeks to make positive social and economic impacts concerning investment. It will achieve its goals using a special portfolio that consists of Egypt’s assets that could be shifted to convenient products that can attract investors. These products can also encourage global, regional, and domestic investors to invest in Egypt’s high-priority sectors, therefor generating wealth and developing current and new projects,” according to Hala al-Saeed.
Proactively, the fund allocates the state’s usable assets and cooperates with investors as well as operators for the sake of designing investment structures that meet their requirements and their venture measures, she added.
The minister also pointed out the fund’s investment plan’s priorities that include maximising the state’s assets’ revenues, localising manufacturing and technology, and attracting local and international investors.
She added that the fund has managed to attract investors from inside and outside the Egyptian market and it inked partnership agreements despite the ongoing economic challenges.
On the domestic level, Saeed noted that the fund signed two investment cooperation agreements in November with Egypt’s Public Business Sector Ministry and the National Investment Bank that aim to tap their assets and inject private investments into them.
