EGX approves proposal to study listing of family businesses

CAIRO – 8 September 2021: Chairman of the Egyptian Stock Exchange, Mohamed Farid, approved the proposal of the Banking and Exchange Committee of the Businessmen Association to work together to develop a map for listing family businesses willing to abide by the terms and procedures of the stock exchange.

The committee presented the proposal during a meeting it organized with the head of the Egyptian Stock Exchange via video conference technology.

The committee will work to meet with family companies that are members of the association and other companies, to find out the challenges they face for listing on the stock exchange from a legal and tax point of view.

Family businesses are not committed to regular audited accounts that meet the required standards and other structural problems, according to a statement by the committee.

The Banking and Exchanges Committee of the Businessmen Association expects that the offering of family businesses will increase the number of new initial public offerings (IPOs), and will also lead to an increase in the daily rate of trading in the stock exchange.

There are a large number of these companies in Egypt, between medium-and large-sized, that can enrich the stock market, according to Hassan Hussein, head of the committee.

The number of companies listed in the capital market is 238, distributed between 212 companies registered in the main market and 26 companies registered in the small and medium-sized companies market. The market capital of these companies reached LE 731 billion pounds until the end of August 2021, according to Mohamed Farid, head of the Egyptian Stock Exchange.

While the restricted bonds amount to 183 issues distributed among 136 treasury bond issues, 19 housing bond issues, 2 corporate bonds and 26 securitization bonds with a total market capitalization of LE 1.967 trillion on August 31, 2021.