Egyptian fintech tycoon Mounir Nakhla's MNT-Halan valued at $775 million on stock debut

Shares of MNT-Halan, the Egyptian fintech group founded and run by tycoon Mounir Nakhla, rose 6.6% on their first day of trading in Cairo on Tuesday, giving the lender a market value of about EGP 41.8 billion ($775 million).

The stock opened on the Egyptian Exchange at the offer price of EGP 24.50 ($0.45) and climbed as high as EGP 28.91 ($0.54) early in the session, a gain of 18%, before ending the day at about EGP 26.12 ($0.48). The debut followed an initial public offering of EGP 7.84 billion ($145 million), Egypt's largest in dollar terms since 2021 and the biggest by a private company in a decade, according to EFG Hermes, which led the deal.

"The first day of trading was aligned with our expectations," Nakhla, the company's chief executive officer, said on Tuesday, pointing to trading volumes.

Strong demand from investors

The offering drew bids worth about EGP 126 billion ($2.3 billion). The retail tranche of 48 million shares was covered 43.6 times, with more than 41,500 orders. Institutional investors applied for 11.2 times the shares on offer to them, or 19.4 times when cornerstone commitments are excluded. More than 300 investors from over 10 countries took part.

Commercial International Bank, Egypt's largest private-sector lender, and London-based fund manager Redwheel served as cornerstone investors and committed to more than a third of the base offering.

The listed company, MNT Tech Holding for Financial Investments, holds the group's Egyptian business. Its operations in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan were left out of the listing.

Parent keeps close to 80%

The IPO was a sale of 320 million existing shares, or 20% of the company, by MNT Investments B.V., the Netherlands-based parent through which Nakhla and the group's other backers own the business. No new shares were sold, so the EGP 7.84 billion went to the parent.

MNT Investments also agreed to sell 24.3 million shares to senior managers before trading began. That leaves it with about 1.26 billion shares, or 78.5% of the company, a block worth about EGP 32.8 billion ($608 million) at Tuesday's close.

The parent has committed to put up to EGP 4 billion ($74 million) of the proceeds back into the Egyptian company by buying new shares at the offer price, which would add about 163 million shares and lift its holding to around 80%.

The parent's largest shareholder is GB Corp, the Cairo-listed auto and finance group controlled by the Ghabbour family, which owned about 41.6% after a funding round in June. Chimera Investments, an Abu Dhabi firm, bought a stake of more than 20% in 2023. Other investors include Al Ahly Capital, the investment arm of the National Bank of Egypt, private equity firms Apis Partners, Development Partners International and Lorax Capital Partners, and the International Finance Corp. The size of Nakhla's personal holding in the parent has not been disclosed.

The June round valued the whole group at $1.4 billion, well above Tuesday's market value for the Egyptian arm alone.

From microfinance to fintech

Nakhla, a former Citibank and EFG Hermes banker, built the business from Tasaheel, a microfinance lender he started in 2009, with GB Corp as his partner from 2010. He launched Halan, a ride-hailing and payments app, in 2018, and the group became Egypt's first startup valued at more than $1 billion in 2023, when Chimera led a $400 million investment.

MNT-Halan lends to small businesses and households that banks have long ignored, and sells consumer loans, payments and buy-now-pay-later services through its app and a network of more than 1,200 outlets across 25 governorates. It has about 1.9 million active customers.

The Egyptian business posted revenue of EGP 19.8 billion ($367 million) in 2025 and net profit of EGP 1.98 billion ($37 million). Its gross loan book stood at EGP 46.7 billion ($866 million) at the end of June.