Egyptian fintech MNT-Halan closes 6.6% higher on Cairo debut; IPO raised US$150m

MNT-Halan, an Egyptian lending and payments company, began trading on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) on 20 October 2026, marking the listing with a bell-ringing ceremony in Cairo attended by government officials, regulators and the exchange's leadership. The shares closed the first session at about EGP 26.12, about 6.6% above the EGP 24.50 offer price, valuing the listed Egyptian business at nearly EGP 42 billion (US$770 million), Reuters reported.

The stock, which trades under the ticker HALN, opened at the offer price and climbed as high as EGP 28.91 during the session, a gain of as much as 18%, according to LaunchBase Africa, an African start-up news site.

The offering raised EGP 7.84 billion (about US$150 million). No new shares were issued: the parent company, MNT Investments B.V., sold 320 million existing shares, or 20% of the Egyptian holding company, MNT Tech Holding for Financial Investments. The parent plans to put up to EGP 4 billion of the proceeds back into the Egyptian business through a closed subscription at the offer price.

Of the 320 million shares, 272 million went to a private tranche for institutional and qualified investors and 48 million to a public tranche. Institutional and high-net-worth investors could subscribe until 13 October and the public until 15 October. The private tranche was covered 11.2 times, or 19.4 times excluding cornerstone commitments. The public tranche was 43.6 times oversubscribed, with more than 41,500 subscription orders.

EFG Hermes, which advised on the offering, put total demand at about EGP 126 billion (US$2.3 billion) and said the listing was Egypt's largest in dollar terms since 2021. Mostafa Gad, its global head of investment banking, called it "a defining milestone for MNT-Halan and an important moment for the Egyptian capital market".

More than 300 investors from at least 10 countries took part in the private placement. Commercial International Bank (CIB) and the London-based asset manager Redwheel were cornerstone investors, committing to more than a third of the base offering.

MNT-Halan was founded in 2018 to digitally bank the unbanked and replace cash with electronic alternatives. Mounir Nakhla is its founder and chief executive. The company lends to small and micro businesses and offers payments, consumer finance and e-commerce.

Customers reach it through a mobile app and more than 1,200 physical distribution points across 25 governorates. The company says that through subsidiaries including Halan and Tasaheel it has served about 7.9 million customers since launch, with about 1.9 million active each year, and has disbursed more than EGP 178 billion (US$3.3 billion) in financing.

Its gross loan book stood at EGP 46.7 billion (US$947 million) at the end of June 2026, and the company says non-performing loans are below 2.5% of the portfolio. The Egyptian business recorded revenue of EGP 19.8 billion in 2025, up from EGP 13.2 billion the year before.

MNT-Halan is often described as Egypt's first fintech unicorn, a status based on the valuation of its parent company, which also has operations outside Egypt. MNT-Halan has bought a bank in Pakistan and a micro-leasing company in Turkey. Rivals including Khazna, Paymob and Valu compete for the same underbanked customers.

Egypt's Financial Regulatory Authority has tightened oversight of consumer-finance and buy-now-pay-later providers, including a temporary freeze on new fintech consumer-finance licences introduced in February 2026. MNT-Halan already holds the relevant licences.

The Cairo listing came days after another African fintech floated in London. Airtel Money, the mobile payments business spun off from Airtel Africa, which runs the Airtel network in Kenya, began conditional trading on the London Stock Exchange on 9 October at £1.96 a share; unconditional dealing began on 14 October.

Nakhla said the demand "reflects investors' confidence in Egypt, the financial ecosystem we have built, and our growth trajectory", as quoted by Disrupt Africa, a pan-African tech news site, on 21 October. The company would now broaden its products and use its own technology to "reach more customers and drive sustainable growth", he said.

Egypt, Nakhla said, as quoted by Reuters, "is a country that has a 115 million population, growing very fast, more and more tech savvy".