👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Caireful what you bid for

Imagine throwing a party, having 27 times more people than you invited show up, and still struggling to get anyone excited once the music starts. That’s visually how Egypt’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) in at least a decade went.

What happened? On November 2, Banque du Caire, one of Egypt’s largest state-owned banks, listed on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) after its parent company, Banque Misr, sold a 45% stake for $658 million.

Investors came in droves. Institutional investors placed orders worth nearly six times the available shares, while retail investors requested 27 times their allocation. But shares of Banque du Caire, Egypt’s sixth-largest commercial bank, ended their first trading day just 0.19% above the offer price. Not quite the grand entrance.

Explain like I’m new here: An IPO is when a company sells shares to public investors for the first time. When demand exceeds the number of shares available, it’s called oversubscription. But high demand doesn’t guarantee that a company’s shares will rise once trading begins.

Why the slow start? Banque du Caire’s shares were priced at their estimated fair value, leaving little room for quick gains. And with Egyptian treasury bills offering yields above 20%, investors had other places to park their money.

Zoom out: Egypt isn’t selling its banks just for the applause. The government plans to use up to half the IPO proceeds, about $329 million, to reduce public debt as it pushes ahead with a state privatisation programme tied to its International Monetary Fund (IMF) commitments.

Egypt hopes to raise between $3 billion and $4 billion from state asset sales before year-end. Banque du Caire has shown that investors will come to the party. Making them stay may require better bargains.

South Africa’s Nedbank has finally collected the keys to one of Kenya’s biggest banks. And the deal has sent Nairobi’s stock market into overdrive.

What’s buzzing? On Tuesday, Nedbank completed the final step in its acquisition of a 66% stake in NCBA Group after 1.087 billion shares were transferred on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). The transaction pushed the exchange’s daily trading value to KES 107.7 billion ($830 million).

Explain like I’m new here. In January, Nedbank announced plans to buy a controlling stake in NCBA, Kenya’s fifth-largest bank by assets, as it sought to expand its business in East Africa. After months of regulatory approvals and shareholder negotiations, the acquisition is now finalised. NCBA will keep its name, management, and stock market listing, but Nedbank now has the biggest say in its strategic direction.

What’s the deal? Nedbank is paying 80% of the purchase price in its own shares and the remaining 20% in cash. Participating NCBA shareholders are exchanging part of their ownership in the Kenyan bank for a stake in its new South African lender.

Zoom out: When one publicly listed bank buys another, the challenge isn’t always finding the money. It’s convincing shareholders that the deal is worth their shares. Just ask Spain’s BBVA, whose €16.3 billion ($18.2 billion) bid to acquire fellow-listed Banco Sabadell collapsed in October 2025 after shareholders representing only 25.47% of voting rights accepted its offer.

Nedbank has had better luck, securing its targeted 66% stake in NCBA, with some shareholders offering more shares than it needed. But with 80% of the purchase price paid in Nedbank shares, participating NCBA investors are now betting on the South African lender’s future, too. The acquisition is settled, but whether it pays off is another story.