Egyptian bank CIB a ‘huge opportunity’ after stock fall

The stock is down by more than 16 percent since the start of the year. (Supplied)

• It comes after the lender’s stock fell to its lowest levels since 2016 last week

DUBAI: Egypt’s Commercial International Bank (CIB) is a top pick of Neem Brokerage because of its attractive price-to-book ratio.
It comes after the lender’s stock fell to its lowest levels since 2016 last week. The stock is down by more than 16 percent since the start of the year.
“We see it is a huge opportunity,” Allen Sandeep, research director at Neem Brokerage told Bloomberg TV on Sunday.” Although I don’t rule out some remnants of the MSCI rebalancing for the next couple of days. This is one of the most attractive investment plays. You are looking at a price to book ratio of 1.1 which is a 50 percent discount to where the stock has traded historically on average.”
It is one of a number of companies in Egypt that offer attractive price-earnings ratios compared to other emerging market peers, according to the broker.
Sandeep also highlighted the value of Egyptian industrial companies such as ElSewedy Electric with a strong backlog of contracts. Its stock is almost 19 percent lower than at the start of the year.
Telecom Egypt also offered significant yields and attractive price-to-earnings ratios, Sandeep said.