Egypt will announce the petroleum companies to float in the bourse in November, with a global road show planned to lure investors, the country's oil minister said in a Tuesday press conference. Eight companies are currently being considered, Minister Tarek El-Molla said in the AmCham conference. Some of these companies are already in the bourse, and a committee is studying whether to float more of their shares. "We need to have more companies in the bourse. We don't have to [float] all shares. We can float at least 20 percent of the shares," the minister stated. El-Molla's statements came at a press conference held by the American Chamber of Commerce as a delegation of US businessmen headed by US Ambassador David Thorne, the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for economic issues visits Egypt to discuss strategic and economic cooperation between the two countries. The US delegation included nearly 50 representatives from major US corporations. Egypt's presidency announced in January that Egypt would soon offer shares of "successful" state-owned companies and banks on the local bourse—its first public offering of government-owned firms since 2005, when it offered shares in Telecom Egypt, AMOC and Sidi Kerir. The minister told Reuters in August that "among the names we are studying are Middle East Oil Refinery (MIDOR) and the Egyptian Ethylene and Derivatives Company (ETHYDCO), and we are considering a capital increase for companies Alexandria Mineral Oils Co. (AMOC), MIDOR, and Misr Fertilizers Production Company (MOPCO)."
