MNT-Halan Gives Back Most IPO Gains After Egypt's Biggest Listing Since 2021

MNT-Halan's Egyptian business has surrendered most of its first-day stock gains, closing at EGP 25 on Thursday, October 22 — just 2% above its EGP 24.50 offer price. That's a sharp comedown from the debut session on October 20, when shares finished at EGP 26.12, up 6.6%, according to Investing.com's historical trading data.

The slide wasn't isolated. Shares fell to EGP 25.80 on Wednesday and dropped another 3.1% on Thursday, during a broader sell-off that saw the benchmark EGX30 index fall 3.4%. Across MNT-Halan's first three sessions, the index was almost unchanged from its close right before the listing. By Thursday, the stock traded 4.3% below its first-day close, though investors allocated at the offer price were still ahead.

What did the IPO actually raise?

The EGP 7.84 billion offering was Egypt's largest IPO in US dollar terms since 2021, according to EFG Hermes, a joint global coordinator and bookrunner. Parent company MNT Investments B.V. sold 320 million existing shares, a 20% stake in the Egyptian business, at a price implying an equity valuation of EGP 39.2 billion.

Demand looked spectacular on paper:

• Institutional tranche: 11.2 times subscribed, with orders from more than 300 investors across over 10 countries
• Retail allocation: covered 43.6 times, with more than 41,500 subscription orders
• Combined demand: approximately EGP 126 billion, per EFG Hermes
• Cornerstone investors: Commercial International Bank and London-based asset manager Redwheel

That appetite hasn't held up in secondary trading. Volume fell from about 47.7 million shares on debut day to 5.6 million on Thursday — roughly an 88% drop in activity.

What does this change for investors?

Here's the practical question for anyone who bought in: what exactly did they get? The listing covers only the Egyptian operations. The parent and its businesses in Türkiye, Pakistan and the UAE remain private, which means the listed company's valuation isn't directly comparable with the $1.4 billion valuation reported for the wider group in June.

The group's earlier backers include Development Partners International, Apis Partners, Algebra Ventures, Wamda and Abu Dhabi's Chimera Investment. Notably, none of them sold parent-company holdings directly — the selling shareholder was MNT Investments B.V. itself.

Public shareholders are buying exposure to a business spanning microfinance, SME lending, consumer finance and payments, delivered through the Halan app and a physical network of more than 1,200 distribution points across 25 governorates. The company reported approximately 1.9 million annually active customers and more than EGP 178 billion in cumulative financing disbursed as of June 30.

Dilution is coming

There's a second structural point that matters for IPO buyers. Because the offering was entirely secondary, its proceeds went to the selling parent, not the company. Fresh capital is due to enter the Egyptian business through a separate subscription by MNT Investments B.V. for up to EGP 4 billion of new shares at the offer price.

That planned capital increase would support expansion — but it will dilute the percentage ownership of investors who bought into the IPO. In effect, IPO participants bought into a company that plans to issue roughly half the offering's value again in new shares at the same price they paid.

The narrow post-listing premium, fading volume and pending dilution suggest the market is pricing MNT-Halan as a solid but fully-valued listing rather than a momentum trade. How the stock digests the EGP 4 billion capital increase will be the next real test of investor conviction.