Monday Breakfast Stories: The Bills Are Getting Paid

Good morning. Pour the buna.

The exchange opened this morning with five equities on the board for the first time. That alone is worth noting before anything else. Then the rest of the week’s news: Ethiopia made real progress on its debt. Not a final settlement, not a clean slate, but a direction the market could price. A preliminary deal on the defaulted $1 billion eurobond. A fresh $464 million from the IMF. A €70 million concessional loan from Italy. And beneath all of that, a banking sector quietly reporting some of the best profit numbers in its history, with CBE posting 80 billion birr in net profit, Awash filing its first annual results since listing, and banks like Gadaa and Ahadu doubling their bottom lines. The exchange kept growing too: an eighth trading member, and ZamZam Bank becoming the first fully interest-free bank to clear ECMA registration. Coffee crossed $3 billion in export earnings and the government immediately set its sights on $6 billion by 2031. And Vodacom wrote a $2.1 billion cheque for Safaricom, the continent’s most watched telecom deal in years.

Grab your buna. There is a lot in the cup this morning.

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Market Open: ESX, Monday July 6, 2026

The board opened this morning with five listed equities for the first time. Ethio Telecom (TELE) is the headline: the first non-bank issuer on the ESX is trading up 19.88 percent to ETB 852.00 on opening volume of 331 shares, a clean debut for a listing the market has been anticipating. Abay Bank (ABAYB) opens its very first session today with an active order book, 40 bids at ETB 1,545 and 1,202 asks at ETB 1,800, but no confirmed trade yet. Awash Bank (AWAB) is up 3.87 percent to ETB 2,955 on 1,159 shares, continuing its role as the exchange’s volume anchor. Wegagen (WGBX) is down 7.80 percent to ETB 1,300 on 267 shares, light-volume consolidation rather than a fundamental move. Gadaa (GDAB) has a single bid in the book at ETB 1,170 and no trade. Five issuers. Monday. The exchange is open.

Source: ESX Neway, July 6, 2026

Macro & Debt

Ethiopia reaches a preliminary deal on the $1 billion defaulted eurobond.

After a default in December 2023 and months of negotiations that collapsed twice, Ethiopia and a key group of international bondholders have finally agreed to a framework for restructuring the $1 billion bond. The terms: an $880 million restructured note repaid in installments, maturing July 2029 at a 6.15% interest rate. The three missed coupon payments, totaling $99.375 million, will be settled in full alongside a consent fee for participating creditors.

The deal includes a New Money Warrant giving bondholders the option to buy a future Ethiopian bond of up to $1 billion at a market-linked rate, or to take a cash payment of up to $90 million instead. The IMF has signed off on the warrant structure as consistent with Ethiopia’s debt sustainability framework. The Official Creditor Committee co-chairs, representing bilateral lenders including China and France, raised no objection.

The Ad Hoc Committee in these negotiations holds about 45% of the outstanding notes, and a formal exchange offer is expected once non-financial terms are finalised. The market responded instantly: Ethiopian bonds rose over 2 cents on the day, trading at 107.625 cents on the dollar, their highest level since January. That is the sound of a discount unwinding. For a country that has spent two years locked out of international capital markets, the direction matters more than any single number. Read More

The IMF approved $464 million, bringing total ECF support to $2.65 billion.

The IMF’s Executive Board completed the fifth review of Ethiopia’s Extended Credit Facility programme this week and approved a disbursement of $464 million. The total cumulative support under the programme now stands at $2.65 billion. The review cited continued progress on macroeconomic stabilisation: the current account has improved, reserves have strengthened, and the exchange rate adjustment that began in July 2024 is broadly on track. Put it alongside the eurobond deal: Ethiopia’s creditor relationships are moving from impasse to process. That shift is what allows international capital to start pricing in a recovery rather than pricing in more default risk. Read More

Italy adds €70 million in concessional budget support.

The same week it closed the eurobond framework, Ethiopia signed a €70 million concessional loan with Italy to finance the Third Development Policy Operation, a budget support instrument co-designed with the World Bank. Finance Minister Ahmed Shide signed for Ethiopia; Ambassador Sem Fabrizi for Italy. The DPO3 targets reforms in fiscal management, private sector growth, energy access, agricultural productivity, and climate resilience. Italy’s description of the deal was pointed: not just financing, but a vote of confidence in Ethiopia’s reform trajectory. Italy has now signed two financing agreements with Ethiopia in the same month, the €5 million Kebena riverside grant and this €70 million loan, making it one of the more active bilateral partners in the current reform window. Read More

Italy adds €70 million in concessional budget support.

The same week it closed the eurobond framework, Ethiopia signed a €70 million concessional loan with Italy to finance the Third Development Policy Operation, a budget support instrument co-designed with the World Bank. Finance Minister Ahmed Shide signed for Ethiopia; Ambassador Sem Fabrizi for Italy. The DPO3 targets reforms in fiscal management, private sector growth, energy access, agricultural productivity, and climate resilience. Italy’s description of the deal was pointed: not just financing, but a vote of confidence in Ethiopia’s reform trajectory. Italy has now signed two financing agreements with Ethiopia in the same. Read More

Capital Market

Prime Capital S.C. becomes the eighth trading member of the ESX.

The Ethiopian Securities Exchange admitted Prime Capital S.C. as its eighth licensed trading member this week, further expanding the brokerage infrastructure that retail and institutional investors need to access the market. The ESX launched with a handful of founding members, and each addition represents both a commercial vote of confidence in the exchange and a practical increase in capacity: more brokers means more access points, more competition on service, and eventually more liquidity in the order book. Read More

ZamZam Bank becomes the first fully interest-free bank to receive ECMA share registration.

The Ethiopian Capital Market Authority registered the shares of ZamZam Bank S.C. this week, making it the first bank operating on a fully interest-free model to reach this milestone. The distinction matters. Islamic finance in Ethiopia has been growing through dedicated windows inside conventional banks, but a full-fledged interest-free bank listing on the exchange opens a lane that has not existed before: Sharia-compliant equity investment in a Sharia-compliant issuer, available to the segment of the Ethiopian population for whom that consistency is a prerequisite. ZamZam’s registration does not set a listing date, but it is the formal step that makes listing possible. Read More

ECMA registers 5 million Addis Bank shares.

The Ethiopian Capital Market Authority also completed the share registration of Addis Bank this week, processing 5 million shares under the securities registration framework. Addis Bank joins a growing register of banks that have cleared the formal gate. The ESX pipeline keeps moving. Read More

Banking Results

This week delivered the heaviest batch of bank earnings the Ethiopian financial sector has ever published in a single week. Read them together and the picture that emerges is of a sector that is profitable, fast-growing, and increasingly expected to justify that performance to shareholders who can now watch it on a screen.

CBE reports 80 billion birr in net profit and 2.4 trillion birr in deposits.

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia published record annual results: 80 billion birr in net profit and total deposits crossing 2.4 trillion birr. CBE is not a listed company, it is state-owned, but its results set the benchmark against which every other Ethiopian bank is implicitly measured. A state bank running at this scale of profitability signals that the underlying demand for banking services in Ethiopia is deep. The question the reform programme is designed to answer is whether private capital can be mobilised to serve the parts of that demand that CBE cannot reach efficiently. Read More

Awash Bank posts 40.7 billion birr in gross profit in its first annual results since listing.

Awash Bank filed its first set of annual results as a publicly listed company: 40.7 billion birr in gross profit for FY2025/26. The number establishes a baseline for what ESX investors bought into when AWAB listed in April 2026. Awash is now the exchange’s largest listed company by free float and unit price, and the market has been watching for these numbers since listing day. The results confirm that the bank’s fundamentals match its premium positioning. How management communicates those results going forward, through shareholder reports, AGMs, and ESX disclosures, will matter as much as the profit line itself. This is what listed companies do: they are accountable in public. Read More

Gadaa Bank more than doubles pre-tax profit to 1.01 billion birr.

Gadaa Bank, the second company ever listed on the ESX, crossed 1 billion birr in pre-tax profit for FY2025/26, more than doubling the prior year’s figure. For a bank that listed in June 2025 and has been trading on thin volume since, the profit result gives shareholders something concrete: the underlying business is growing fast, whatever the order book says on any given day. Read More

Ahadu Bank’s gross profit jumps 94.2% to ETB 1.15 billion.

Ahadu Bank reported a 94.2% increase in gross profit before provisioning and tax, reaching ETB 1.15 billion for FY2025/26. The bank is not yet listed, but at this rate of growth and with ECMA registrations accelerating across the sector, it is the kind of number that gets noticed by investors watching the pipeline.

The combined message from this week’s results is straightforward: Ethiopian banking is generating real earnings. The institutions that have chosen to bring those earnings into public view by listing on the exchange are raising the standard for what everyone else will eventually have to do. Read More

Agriculture & Trade

Coffee crossed $3 billion. The government wants $6 billion by 2031.

Ethiopia’s coffee sector generated a record $3 billion in export earnings in the 2025/26 fiscal year, the first time the country has crossed that threshold. Within days of the number being confirmed, the government announced a five-year national coffee development package with a target of $6 billion in annual export earnings by 2031.

The ambition is grounded in a clear productivity gap. Ethiopia currently produces 8 to 9 quintals of coffee per hectare. Brazil averages around 15, Vietnam 22 to 25. Ethiopian farms run roughly 2,500 trees per hectare; global best practice is 5,000 to 7,000. The new package targets average productivity of 21 quintals per hectare by 2031, more than doubling current yields, through nine interventions spanning improved varieties, higher planting density, better post-harvest processing, and a new tissue culture facility at the Jimma Agricultural Research Center for producing disease-resistant, high-yield hybrid seedlings at scale.

Coffee contributes 35 to 40 percent of Ethiopia’s foreign exchange earnings and supports the livelihoods of more than six million smallholder farmers. Doubling those earnings without doubling the area under cultivation is a productivity story, not just an agricultural one. If the tissue culture facility delivers what it promises, and if the agronomic extension system can reach farmers at the scale the plan requires, the $6 billion figure is achievable. Those are two significant ifs. But the starting point, a record $3 billion season, is a better foundation than any previous government coffee strategy has launched from. Read More

Africa & Telecom

Vodacom completes a $2.1 billion deal for a majority stake in Safaricom.

Vodacom Group finalised its $2.1 billion acquisition of a majority stake in Safaricom this week, reshaping the ownership structure of East Africa’s most important telecoms company. Safaricom is not just a mobile operator; it is the company behind M-Pesa, which processes more than $300 billion in annual transaction value and is the financial backbone for tens of millions of people in the region. Vodacom, which already had a meaningful stake, now holds a controlling interest.

The deal has direct implications for Ethiopia, where Safaricom Ethiopia has been operating since 2022 under the country’s first private telecoms licence. The Ethiopia operation is still in its growth phase, building infrastructure and customer base in a market where Ethio Telecom has decades of entrenchment. Vodacom’s deeper ownership gives Safaricom Ethiopia a parent with stronger incentive and capacity to invest in that subsidiary’s long-term trajectory. For Ethiopian consumers and businesses, the question is whether deeper Vodacom control accelerates the rollout of M-Pesa-style services in a country where mobile money adoption has been slow relative to the region. The answer depends on regulatory decisions in Addis Ababa as much as corporate strategy in Johannesburg. Read More

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Stockmarket.et Podcast: Episode 4

In Episode 4 of our Stockmarket.et series, we break down Abay Bank’s securities registration with the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority: what the process actually involves, what it means for the bank, and what it opens up for investors. If you have been following the pipeline of banks moving toward the ESX and want to understand what registration actually does, this is the episode for it.

That’s your Monday Breakfast Stories for this week. The eurobond found a framework, the IMF released another tranche, Italy signed a €70 million reform loan, CBE posted 80 billion birr in profit, Awash filed its first public results, Gadaa and Ahadu both delivered sharp earnings growth, the ESX added an eighth trading member, ZamZam became the first interest-free bank to clear ECMA registration, coffee earned a record $3 billion and immediately set its sights on double, and Vodacom paid $2.1 billion to control the company that runs M-Pesa. The bills are getting paid, the profits are being published, and the market is, slowly but unmistakably, becoming something that requires to be taken seriously.

Keep your coffee strong. See you next Monday. ☕