“At the right price there should be plenty of appetite for any Egyptian IPO,” said Hasnain Malik, a strategist at Tellimer in Dubai. However, he said that, in general, foreign institutional investors are more likely to go for IPOs out of the private sector, whereas sovereign wealth funds will be more interested in government-related enterprises.

“This is because, for sovereign wealth, the concern over whether their interests as a minority investor are subordinated to those of the government is outweighed by their geopolitical interest in the overall country,” he said.

The benchmark EGX 30 Index has been on a bullish run, rising over 100% in local currency terms from its July low, and is the third-best performing benchmark globally this year. It jumped 3.9% on Thursday, extending gains to a fifth day, and closing at the highest since May 2018.

Eoin Treacy's view

The Gulf War was a transformative event for India. When Iraq invaded Kuwait remittances abruptly stopped and the Indian government was presented with a dilemma. They chose economic reform and capitalism and the rest is history. The Nifty Index is up 3077% since 1991 for an annualised 9.53% gain. That is almost identical to the S&P500’s 9.99% 32-year annualised performance on a constant currency basis.