Egypt’s Frayed Fraternal Bonds
Egyptian stocks continued their comeback after 2016’s near 15 percent loss as a multi-tier $4 billion Eurobond, the first in two years, was three times oversubscribed from a diverse international investor base. The Finance Ministry conducting roadshows pressed fiscal and currency adjustment themes around the $12 billion IMF program, although public debt reduction may not materialize until end-decade according to its presentations. It was able to sell a 30-year piece at almost the same 8 percent yield as a coincident Argentina issue, ahead of planned $20-30 billion mega-placements by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where equities have also improved. Inflation blew out to almost 30 percent with de-pegging and tourism has yet to recover from security-related travel warnings despite the cheaper pound. The speculative sovereign credit rating has not budged, and President Al-Sisi continues to crack down on opposition as he tries to convince President Trump, after they struck a relationship during the campaign, to brand the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group cementing pariah status. The enthusiastic reception was in contrast with next-door Tunisia, also in an extended Fund arrangement, as it prepares a EUR 1 billion tap following a high-profile investment conference late last year featuring dozens of infrastructure projects. GDP growth should double to 2.5 percent this year, but the chronic budget deficit is above 5 percent with the civil service wage bill out of proportion with regional and global peers. In the US the outgoing Obama administration pledged to sustain economic and military assistance which has focused respectively on enhanced border controls and small business creation. A venture capital enterprise fund was launched early in the Arab Spring and recent emphasis has been in areas like collateral reform to enable easier bank borrowing as state-owned lenders await another possible round of recapitalization. Privatization of the government’s large industrial portfolio has been promised under consecutive IMF programs with limited success, and stock exchange performance has been flat awaiting breakthroughs.
The Gulf has brought excitement with Saudi Arabia’s appointment of an independent boutique underwriting adviser for a slice of Aramco, as the market further opens to outside institutional investors with a stronger regulatory body. The domestic sovereign wealth fund, with $200 billion in assets, will get a windfall from the sale after the central bank just transferred $25 billion under a mandate to increase allocation for local employment and higher return categories. Another external bond operation is in the works, likely in the form of no-interest sukuk, as Riyadh has cancelled around $20 billion in contracts since the oil price and foreign reserve slides. Kuwait was up 15 percent in January on the MSCI frontier index, as its big weighting drew support ahead of inaugural bond and economic diversification initiatives. Bahrain and Oman dipped slightly as the former continues to experience Shia-Sunni clashes, and the latter had a 2016 fiscal gap at almost 20 percent of GDP and resorted to overseas borrowing and its sovereign wealth stash. Gas exploration spending jumped 10 percent for the Kazzan field and defense outlays also rose as the ruling family tries to cap a wellspring of political tensions from discontented youth and migrant workers.
