Arabs showed an increased appetite for Egyptian stocks through the week ending 10 May as their buying orders pushed market transactions upwards to LE7 billion, the highest weekly turnover since the beginning of the year and almost twice that of the previous week. The CASE30 closed 1.6 per cent higher at 7,629. In news related to the administration of the market itself, Egypt's Capital Market Authority (CMA) signed a number of agreements with US institutions, to provide it with training and expertise. Among the institutions are the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ and the Securities Exchange Commission. Heliopolis Housing's shares as well as most real estate companies' shares had a very active week closing at LE485, 60 per cent higher than the previous week. This double digit increase pushed the CMA to suspend the trading on the company's shares to make sure that it is not due to individual or company manipulation. During the week, the company revealed a plan to establish a housing project over an area of 1,700 acres on the Cairo-Suez highway close to the Talaat Mustafa Group's Madinty project. Plans for the project's infrastructure are being prepared and will be ready in 2008. The company's results for the first nine months of fiscal year 2006/2007 showed a 41 per cent increase in its net income to LE104.8 million. SIXTH OF OCTOBER DEVELOPMENT AND INVESTMENT COMPANY (SODIC) has been fined LE5,000 and had trading in its shares suspended on Thursday because it did not report to the CMA and the stock exchange as to the reasons behind the failure of its Palm Hills acquisition deal. Earlier this week, the company sent CASE a press release clarifying that the problems stemmed from the fact that Palm Hills did not transfer ownership of some of the land owned by its subsidiaries to SODIC. SODIC indicated that the contract specified a validation period of 180 days for Palm Hills to transfer the land, which is an important part of the value of Palm Hills. CASE allowed trading to resume for shares of SODIC, following this disclosure. ORASCOM FOR HOTELS AND DEVELOPMENT (OHD): The company's General Assembly convened through the week and approved increasing its paid-in capital by LE500 million. OHD is using the capital increase to partially finance its acquisition of a majority stake in Garana Touristic Group. This came after OHD announced that it will sell its 1.43 million treasury stocks and use the proceeds as an installment to pay for the deal. The deal is to be executed through a stock swap. OHD told its shareholders in an extraordinary general meeting on 29 November that the LE235 million acquisition will be executed gradually, over two years. ORASCOM TELECOM HOLDING (OTH): Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited (HTIL), 19 per cent owned by OTH, completed the sale of its 67 per cent stake in its Indian subsidiary Hutch Essar to Vodafone Group. The estimated pre-tax gain from the sale is around $9 billion. HTIL's board reaffirmed that it will distribute a special $12.94 dividend once the necessary procedures are completed. OTH will receive a $799 million cash dividend as a result. AL-SEWEDY CABLES injected $12 million in Al-Sewedy Cables Syria to upgrade the annual production capacity of the factory from 6,900 tonnes to 24,000 tonnes. It has acquired 100 per cent of Al-Wataniya, which produces power cables and enjoys a 10-year tax exemption. The value of the deal has not yet been announced. EASTERN TOBACCO COMPANY (ETC): The company's turnover during the first nine months of 2006/2007 was LE5.8 billion compared to LE5.5 billion in the same period last year. The company's net profits increased from LE349 million to LE461 million. The company held an extraordinary general meeting during the week to discuss the budget of fiscal year 2007/2008, which has a targeted net income of LE740 million. DELTA INDUSTRIAL COMPANY (Ideal), a subsidiary of Olympic Group, has allocated about LE100 million to finance expansion of its home appliance plant over the next two years. The expansion will cost the company about LE50 million by the end of the first phase in 2007. The present production capacity of the company's refrigerator plant amounts to 250,000 units per year, but the company plans to push up production by five per cent this year. AL-WATANY BANK OF EGYPT (WBE) informed the Central Bank of Egypt that it has received letters from both regional and international banks expressing interest in buying a majority stake in WBE. A memo listing a brief concerning these banks will be submitted to the CBE, to allow them to perform due diligence. The bank released the results of the first quarter of 2007 two weeks ago posting a 78 per cent increase in net income to LE44.1 million. Compiled by Sherine Abdel-Razek
